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C! 


THE   FRENCH  IDEAL 


THE  FRENCH  IDEAL 

PASCAL,    FfiNELON 


AND  OTHER  ESSATS 


BY 

MADAME   DUCLAUX 

(A.  MARY  F.  ROBINSON) 


"Vivre  genereusement." 

Saint  Francois  de  Sales, 

'Je  ne  vois  qu'   Infini  par  toutes  les  fene'tres, 
Et  mon  esprit,  toujours  du  vertige  hante, 
Jalouse  du  n£ant  1'  insensibilit6  .  .  . 
Ah,  ne  jamais  sortir  des  Nombres  et  des  Etres  !" 

Baudelaire. 


NEW   YORK 
E.  P.   BUTTON   &   CO. 

31    WEST   TWENTY-THIRD   STREET 
1911 


RICHARD  CLAY  &  SONS,  LIMITED, 

BRUNSWICK  STREET,  STAMFORD  STREET,  S.E., 

AND  BUNGAV   SUFFOLK. 


I  DEDICATE  THESE  ESSAYS — 

PASCAL,  THE  PRAGMATIST  ; 

F£NELON,  THE  THEOSOPHIST; 

BUFFON,  THE  NATURALIST; 

LAMARTINE,  THE  ROMANTIC  J — 
TO  THEIR  FIRST  FRIEND  AND  HARBOURER, 
THE  HON.  A.  D.  ELLIOT. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I      PASCAL          I 

II       FENELON    AND    HIS    FLOCK 103 

III  BUFFON   IN   HIS    GARDEN 233 

IV  LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE 275 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

To  face  page 
PASCAL         ....  .  -27 

F£NELON  ....  .116 

BUFFON      ...                                   .                                               «      241 
LAMARTINE 291 


I 
PASCAL 

"  C'etoit  un  ramasseur  de  coquilles." — NICOLE. 


1.  Blaise  Pascal.  (Euvres.     (Les  grands  ecrivains  de  la  France?) 

ire  serie.  3  volumes.  Jusqdau  Memorial  de  1654.  Par 
MM.  LEON  BRUNSCHVICG  et  P.  BOUTROUX.  2me  serie, 
en  preparation.  3me  serie.  3  volumes.  Les  Pensees 
Par  M.  L.  BRUNSCHVICG. 

2.  Pascal  et  son  Temps.     Par  FORTUNAT  STROWSKI.     3  volumes. 

1908. 

3.  Pascal.    By  VISCOUNT  ST.  CYRES.  1909 

4.  Pascal  ine"dit.     Par  M.  ERNEST  JOVY.     2  volumes.  1908-1911. 

5.  Discours  sur  les  Passions,  etc.     Avec  commentaire.     Par  M. 

EMILE  FAGUET,  de  1'Academie  Frangaise.  1910. 

6.  Les  Derniers  jours  de  Blaise  Pascal.     Par  AUGUSTIN  GAZIER. 

1910. 

7.  Pascal.     Same  religieuse,  etc.     Par  H.  PETITOT.  1911. 

8.  DAngoisse  de  Pascal.     Par  MAURICE  BARRES,  de  1'Academie 

Frangaise.  1909. 

9.  La   Maladie  de  Pascal.     Par  le  Docteur   P.  JUST-NAVARRE. 

1911. 

10.  Pascal.    Par  VICTOR  GlRAUD. 

11.  Port  Royal.    Par  C.  A.  SAINTE-BEUVE.     6  volumes. 

12.  Pascal.    Par  EMILE  BOUTROUX. 

13.  Les  So2urs  de  Pascal.     Par    LuciE    FELIX-FAURE    GOYAU. 

1911. 


PASCAL 

NONE  of  the  great  French  classics  is  so  near  to 
us,  so  dear  to  us,  as  Pascal.  We  love  them  all. 
Though  classics,  they  are  no  mere  august  and 
laurelled  shades;  they  stand  on  our  side  the  water- 
shed of  the  Renaissance ;  they  are  modern,  living : 
the  amorous  and  scrupulous  Racine;  Corneille,  the 
Norman  barrister,  who  renewed  the  philosophy  of 
the  Stoics  and  made  it  chivalrous;  Moliere,  of  the 
loose-lipped  and  melancholy  visage,  with  his  deep 
and  lax  views  of  man  and  life ;  Bossuet,  the  brother 
of  Pindar  and  Isaiah,  and  yet  just  a  bishop  at  Ver- 
sailles; Fenelon,  the  knight  and  hero  of  the  Inner 
Life.  .  .  .  But  not  one  of  these  is  adequate  to  the 
twentieth  century  in  the  same  sense  as  Pascal :; 
pragmatist,  physicist,  mathematician,  gentleman, 
inventor.  If  Pascal,  however,  had  been  no  more 
than  this,  he  would  not  have  possessed  such  a 
magical  survival.  He  would  have  left  a  name  in 
science — a  great  name,  such  as  Leibnitz  or  Torri- 
celli;  and,  in  literature,  a  name  bathed  in  the  very 
perfume  of  courtesy,  like  Sir  Philip  Sydney  or  La 
Bruyere.  It  is  for  other  reasons  that  he  is  the 

B2  3 


4  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

companion  of  our  inner  selves.  He  was  the  master 
of  a  style  naturally  grand  and  simple,  as  exact  and 
fiery  as  the  stars ;  his  style  was  perfect !  And  the 
soul  of  Pascal  was  sublime  and  imperfect.  Like 
Tolstoi,  he  was  a  saint  with  pain  and  difficulty — a 
human,  faulty  saint;  a  feverish  but  heroic  soul. 

Physicist,  pragmatist,  artist  in  prose,  inventor, 
mathematician,  man  of  the  world  and  saint — Pascal 
was  all  these  things,  but  not  in  a  continuous  progres- 
sion, nor  were  they  all  blended  into  a  perfect  type, 
like  the  faces  in  a  composite  photograph.  No;  let 
us  imagine  rather  a  number  of  Pascals,  each  distinct, 
like  the  rays  of  a  revolving  lighthouse — mathe- 
matician, natural  philosopher,  fine  gentleman, 
ascetic,  revivalist,  man  of  letters,  inventor — suc- 
ceeding and  supplanting  each  other  on  the  screen 
of  his  being,  recurrent  personalities,  appearing  and 
disappearing. 

More  disconcerting  still,  sometimes  there  comes 
out  an  inversion — the  element  appears  on  the  wrong 
side,  as  when  we  turn  over  a  piece  of  beaten  metal- 
work;  where  there  was  a  hollow,  behold  a  boss,  and 
the  high  relief  is  sunk  into  a  depression.  The 
Pascal,  man  of  the  world,  lecturing  to  duchesses, 
who  liked  good  horses  to  his  coach,  plenty  of  money 
and  everything  handsome  about  him,  is  the  antago- 
nist of  the  ascetic  Pascal  who  would  have  no  hang- 
ings in  his  bedroom,  carried  his  own  tray  to  and 
from  the  kitchen,  and  looked  on  brushes  and  brooms 
as  useless  articles  of  luxury. 


PASCAL  5 

In  highly  organised  natures  the  psychical 
elements  are  sometimes  dissociated — the  machinery, 
too  delicate,  too  complex,  is  often  out  of  gear.  It  is 
the  abundance  and  importance  of  these  elements  that 
make  Pascal's  case  unique,  and  his  character  full 
of  apparent  contradictions — so  many  selves,  each 
animated  by  a  different  purpose  and  activity  of  its 
own.  His  state  of  mind  was  never,  at  any  given 
moment,  the  sole  and  stable  result  of  all  his  moral 
life  :  it  was  the  image  of  one  face  in  a  many-figured 
soul.  A  certain  precipitation,  incoherence,  inexact- 
ness, sometimes  result  from  the  overlapping,  the 
brusque  appearances  and  disappearances,  of  the 
recurrent  elements.  To  examine  such  a  soul  as  this 
is  to  lose  ourselves  in  listening  to  the  most  intricate 
fugue  in  all  the  counterpoint  of  psychology. 


I 

Pascal  was  in  an  eminent  degree  the  son  of  his 
father  and  the  product  of  his  native  province : 
"  Blasius  Pascal,  Patricius  Arvernus,"  as  he  signed 
his  arithmetical  machine,  or  (according  to  the 
freakish  letters  subscribed  to  the  third  Provinciate) 
B.P.A.F.D.E.P.— "Blaise  Pascal,  Auvergnat,  fils 
d'Etienne  Pascal."  Certain  traits  of  his  volcanic 
province  were  so  deeply  imbedded  in  his  nature  that 
nothing — no  conversion,  no  dissociation — could 
efface  them ;  even  in  the  latter  days  of  his  sainthood 


6  THE  FRENCH   IDEAL 

we  find  their  trace,  like  fossil-shells  in  stone, 
sterilised  but  immortal.  Underneath  the  super- 
structure of  his  soul  there  exists  the  latent  spirit  of 
a  place  where  men,  though  kind  and  true  and  deeply 
passionate,  are  cold  and  harsh ;  where,  born  to  hard- 
ship, they  are  naturally  shrewd  and  sparing  and  yet 
the  more  appreciative  of  all  amenity;  men  of  more 
imagination  than  sensibility,  of  helpful  acts  rather 
than  of  tender  speeches.  For  in  this  land  so  close 
to  the  romantic  Limousin  and  the  sensuous  Perigord 
there  is  no  mildness  of  nature,  no  babble  of  green 
fields,  none  of  the  abundance  and  prettiness  that 
come  so  natural,  for  instance,  to  a  Fenelon.  But 
nowhere  do  we  find  more  clearly  the  relish  and 
courage  of  a  fine  sincerity,  and  a  disposition  to  look 
plainly  in  the  face  both  Life  and  Death. 

Pascal  has  many  of  the  traits  of  the  traditional 
mountaineer  of  Auvergne.  All  his  life  he  was  a 
driver  of  hard  bargains.  He  had  a  positive  imagina- 
tion, a  keen  grasp  of  facts,  a  hatred  of  conventions. 
The  same  love  of  truth  inspired  his  experiments  in 
physical  science  and  his  quest  of  a  supernatural 
reality.  He  had  not  the  intellectual  disinterested- 
ness of  a  Descartes;  his  science  was  utilitarian, 
always  in  search  of  a  material  benefit;  just  as  his 
religion  was  not  the  mystic's  selfless  Love  of  God, 
but  the  quest  of  Salvation — the  greatest  benefit  of 
all! 

On  this  ancestral  foundation  (as  secret  as  it  is 
stable,  supporting  all,  but  never  seen)  let  us  imagine 


PASCAL  7 

the  delicate  superstructure  of  an  individual  soul, 
passionate,  violent  and  charming,  the  least  like  the 
traditional  rugged  Auvergnat  of  any  that  we  may 
suppose.  Pascal  in  his  youth,  until  about  his 
twentieth  year  (from  which  date  he  was  a  confirmed 
invalid),  was  a  sort  of  Prince  Charming,  a  delight- 
ful young  Archimedes,  the  darling  of  Science — 
" parf aitement  beau";  and  even  later  portraits  show 
a  handsome,  noble  face  where  there  lurks  an  imper- 
tinent grace,  just  peeping  through  its  poetic  gravity 
—the  spirit  of  the  Provinciates  piercing  the  spirit 
that  will  one  day  prompt  the  Pensees.  For  although 
the  ultimate  character  of  Pascal's  genius  was  to 
prove  a  tragic  spiritual  grandeur,  yet,  almost  to  the 
end,  there  was  a  freakishness  mixed  up  with  it,  a 
love  of  paradox,  a  delight  in  subterfuges  and  dis- 
guises, an  amusement  at  throwing  dust  in  the  world's 
eyes  and  springing  out  on  it  in  the  dark,  sometimes 
as  "  Louis  de  Montalte,"  sometimes  as  "  Amos 
Dettonville,"  and  sometimes  as  "  Salomon  de 
Tultie."  A  lonely  boy,  brought  up  between  two 
clever,  high-spirited,  idolising  sisters,  by  a  father 
whose  sole  scholar  he  was  and  who  allowed  him  no 
other  master  than  himself,  the  young  Pascal  grew 
in  grace':  subtle,  charming,  prompt  to  disdain, 
proud,  and  full  of  self-confidence.  Even  in  later 
days  he  never  quite  lost  that  amor  dominandi, 
that  libido  excellendi,  that  burning  desire  to  sur- 
pass which  he  himself  allowed  to  be  his  besetting 
sin. 


8  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

"  Ceux  qui  ne  le  connoissoient  pas  estoient  surpris 
d'abord  quand  ils  1'entendoient  parler  dans  les  con- 
versations, parce  qu'il  sembloit  tousjours  qu'il  y 
tenoit  le  dessus,  avec  quelque  sorte  de  domination; 
mais  c'estoit  le  mesme  principe  de  la  vivacite  de 
son  esprit  qui  en  estoit  la  cause,  et  on  n'estoit  pas 
longtemps  avec  luy,  qu'on  ne  vit  bien  tost  qu'en  cela 
mesme  il  y  avoit  quelquechose  d'aymable." 

M.  Fortunat  Strowski,  in  that  admirable  study  of 
his,2  so  novel  and  so  illuminating,  so  wise  and  so 
human,  attributes  to  Pascal's  home-bred  youth  his 
impatience  of  contradiction,  his  imperious  tone,  his 
vivacity,  and  also  his  candid  melancholy.  He  was 
in  these  things  more  like  a  girl  than  a  young  man, 
with  nerves  and  vapours,  with  a  grace  and  a  variable 
charm  which  passionately  attached  his  friends,  and 
sometimes  made  them  suffer. 

Let  us  etch,  behind  the  noble  head  of  Pascal,  the 
features  of  his  sisters,  his  Martha  and  his  Mary— 
Gilberte  and  Jacqueline,  Gilberte  who  so  deeply 
loved  him,  and  Jacqueline  whom  he  so  deeply  loved. 
Gilberte  Pascal  (who  married  her  cousin  from  Cler- 
mont,  Florin  Perier)  was  a  notable  and  a  warm- 
hearted handsome  creature,  to  whose  Lives  we  owe 
our  best  acquaintance  with  Pascal  and  with  Jacque- 
line— a  woman  of  strong  mind,  keen  psychological 
sense,  just  criticism.  So  far  as  their  writings  go, 
Gilberte  appears  superior  to  Jacqueline,  from  whose 

1  La    Vie  de  Monsieur  Paschal  escritc  par  Madame  Perier  sa 
sceur. — Brunschvicg  et  Boutroux,  I,  101. 

2  Fortunat  Strowski,  Pascal  et  son  Temps. 


PASCAL  9 

poems,  once  so  famous,  the  genius  has  evaporated. 
.  .  .  Gilberte  had  in  her  mind  something  of  the 
substance  of  a  great  critic;  and  Flechier  said  that 
"  even  without  her  kinship  with  M.  Pascal  she  might 
have  been  accounted  illustrious  in  herself."  With 
how  fine  a  touch  she  shows  us  the  accidental,  in- 
voluntary character  of  her  brother's  genius !  How 
accurately  and  sensitively  she  describes  his  style, 
and  the  magic  touch  with  which  he  made  a  phrase 
his  own,  that  he  had  found  and  taken  dans  les  livres 

"  quand  il  les  avoit  digerees  a  sa  maniere  elles 
paroissoient  tout  autres." 

Time  has  not  faded  the  strong  sense  of  Madame 
Perier.  But  it  was  Jacqueline  who  won  the  admira- 
tion of  Richelieu  and  Corneille.  A  few  bright 
charming  letters  still  reflect  that  affable  gaiety,  that 
touching  truth  of  tone,  that  warmth  of  heart  which 
made  Mademoiselle  Pascal  the  darling  of  Court  and 
convent,  of  her  family  and  of  letters :  Jacqueline 
was  a  honey-pot  round  whom  there  was  always  a 
buzz  of  wings.  Quite  without  vanity,  indifferent  to 
success,  she  was  a  small,  sweet,  pale  little  person, 
the  plain  one  of  her  family,  for  the  smallpox  had 
ruined  her  colours  and  thickened  her  features  in 
early  youth.  Her  gentle  brightness  hid  a  will  of 
steel,  supple  as  a  spring  but  never  to  be  broken. 
She  would  not  gainsay,  struggle  or  oppose,  but, 
biding  her  time  serenely,  she  was  sure  in  the  end 
to  arrive  where  she  wished,  which  was  always  in  an 
upward  direction. 


10  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

The  little  poetess  was  but  fourteen  when  "  Mon- 
sieur Corneille  "  proposed  to  her  to  compete  for  the 
prize  at  the  poetic  games  of  Rouen—  "  Elle  fit  les 
stances  et  on  luy  en  porta  le  prix,  avec  des  trompettes 
et  des  tambours,  en  grande  ceremonie.  Elle  recut 
cela  avec  une  indifference  admirable."  She  was  so 
simple  that  at  fifteen  years  of  age  she  would  dress 
and  undress  her  dolls  like  any  child  of  ten.  The 
praises  of  Richelieu  and  Corneille  had  not  turned 
her  head—  "  Nous  luy  f  aisions  reproche  de  cette 
enfance."  To-day  this  sweet  childishness  and  a 
sort  of  airy  brightness  is  what  remains  of  Jacque- 
line's charm.  Still  one  line  in  the  Mystere  de  Jesus 
keeps  a  feminine  haunting  echo  of  Pascal's  genius— 
"  Le  drap  dans  lequel  on  ensevelit  Jesus  n'etait 
pas  a  lui !  " 

Two  nervous,  exalted,  enthusiastic  natures,  hiding, 
like  the  opal,  a  flash  of  fire  beneath  a  milky  bright- 
ness, Blaise  and  Jacqueline  Pascal  were  inseparable 
souls.  Twin  in  the  spirit,  if  not  in  the  flesh,  their 
natures  were  joined  by  the  most  intimate  sympathy. 
Frail  of  health,  consumptive,  we  may  suppose  that 
they  resembled  the  mother  they  scarcely  could 
remember;  while  Gilberte  reproduced  the  sound 
brain  and  solid  heart  of  the  judge  and  geometer, 
Etienne  Pascal. 

II 

The  father  of  these  extraordinary  children  was 
a  magistrate  of  Clermont-Ferrand,  in  Auvergne, 


PASCAL  11 

where  Gilberte  was  born  in  1620,  Blaise  Pascal  in 
1623  (on  the  igth  of  June),  and  Jacqueline  in  1625 
—the  year  before  her  mother's  death.  In  1630 
Etienne  Pascal  sold  his  charge  and  his  estates,  and 
moved  to  Paris  in  order  to  educate  his  children. 

He  was  himself  a  mathematician  of  repute,  a 
friend  of  Mersenne,  Roberval,  Huygens,  Gassendi, 
an  amiable  adversary  of  Descartes,  and  deeply 
interested  in  the  science  of  physics.  Only  our  own 
age  has  seen  such  changes  in  our  views,  such  start- 
ling new  conceptions.  When  Etienne  Pascal  moved 
from  Clermont  to  Paris,  Galileo  was  still  alive  and 
Newton  was  unborn.  The  notion  of  a  single  finite 
earth  surrounded  by  a  series  of  eternal  crystal 
spheres  had  only  lately  given  place  to  the  new  and 
dazzling  idea  of  infinite  worlds  dispersed  through- 
out illimitable  space.  He  was  of  the  first  generation 
that  should  live,  as  we  live,  between  two  Infinities : 
the  infinitely  great  (so  recently  revealed  by  the  pro- 
gress of  astronomy)  and  the  infinitely  little,  which 
the  men  of  his  time  perceived,  not  as  we  do,  by 
microscopes  or  chemical  scales,  but  by  the  induc- 
tions of  mathematics.  Yet  Etienne  Pascal  and  his 
friends  dreamed  all  our  dreams — those  dreams 
which  we  have  made  realities.  Father  Mersenne 
imagined  a  diving  ship  for  submarine  navigation  * — 
a  monster  of  copper  and  leather  with  port-holes, 
ventilators,  and  tubes  communicating  with  the  sur- 
face; and  the  same  Mersenne  devised  a  new 
1  Histoire  de  la  Marine  franfaise,  par  Charles  de  la  Ronciere. 


12  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

"  machine  a  voler,"  1  and  would  doubtless  have  been 
surprised  to  learn  that  fourteen-score  years  must 
elapse  ere  his  invention  should  be  put  in  practice. 
But  what,  after  all,  are  fourteen-score  years  to  men 
who  live  in  the  constant  presence  of  Infinity? 

In  this  world  of  academic  conversations,  the  pre- 
cocity of  young  Pascal  was  abundantly  stimulated. 
At  his  father's  house  the  principal  savants  of  Paris 
were  accustomed  to  meet  in  order  to  discuss  the 
principal  scientific  questions  of  the  hour;  as,  for 
instance,  What  is  the  cause  of  specific  gravity?  Is 
it  a  quality  inherent  in  the  object  that  falls  or  an 
attraction  from  without?  In  these  learned  reunions 
young  Pascal  held  his  own,  and  sometimes  would 
contribute  remarks  and  ideas  so  notable  that  his 
father  decided  to  escort  him  to  those  more  important 
gatherings,  held  at  the  convent  of  Father  Mersenne, 
which  were  the  beginnings  of  the  Academic  des 
Sciences.  When  Blaise  Pascal  was  between  sixteen 
and  seventeen  years  of  age,  he  wrote  "A  Treatise 
on  Conic  Sections."  Of  the  mathematical  excel- 
lence of  the  few  pages  which  remain  of  this  un- 
printed  study  we  dare  not  speak.  What  strikes  us 
chiefly  in  them  is  that,  at  seventeen  years  of  age, 
the  mind  of  Pascal  worked  in  the  same  manner  as 
during  his  years  of  maturity.  He  pounced,  as  it 
were,  on  some  discovery  whose  value  hitherto  had 
been  unrecognised,  which  dwindled  in  obscurity, 
imperfectly  vitalised,  until  Pascal  picked  it  up,  held 
1  Revue  du  Mois.  Fevrier,  1911. 


PASCAL  13 

it  in  the  warmth  of  his  hand,  gave  it  a  twist,  breathed 
on  it,  and  the  thing  began  to  live.  Pascal  was  much 
less  an  inventor  than  an  experimenter,  an  organiser. 
Nicole  called  him  a  "  ramasseur  de  coquilles " ! 
—a  picker  up  of  shells  (from  which  he  plucked  the 
pearls),  a  collector,  that  is  to  say,  rather  than  a 
creator.  There  exists  in  the  Apocrypha  a  legend  of 
the  childhood  of  Christ  which  expresses  the  idea 
more  justly  :  the  children  of  Bethlehem  were  playing 
in  the  road,  making  mud-sparrows,  when  the  divine 
Child  passed  that  way,  and  took  the  small  clay 
images  into  His  hand;  breathing  upon  them,  He 
filled  them  with  life,  and  sent  them  flying  up  into 
the  sky.  So  Pascal ;  the  images,  let  us  admit,  were 
often  not  of  his  framing,  but  he  gave  them  life.  He 
was  an  Animator,  and  the  birds  that  he  sent  winging 
out  of  the  dust  have  flown  through  the  centuries 
even  to  our  own  times. 


Ill 

The  story  has  often  been  told  how  Etienne 
Pascal,  being  compromised  in  a  rising  against  the 
Chancellor  Seguier,  fled  from  Paris  in  1638,  leaving 
his  children  in  the  charge  of  a  faithful  housekeeper. 
But  these  children  were  already  personages. 
Jacqueline,  at  twelve  years  old,  was  the  author  of 
a  book  of  poems  and  a  favourite  at  Court.  One 
day,  meeting  the  Cardinal  de  Richelieu  at  the  house 
of  the  Duchess  of  Aiguillon,  she  asked  her  father's 


14 

pardon  so  prettily  in  verse  that  Richelieu  not  only 
recalled  him  to  Paris,  but  soon  afterwards  gave  him 
the  important  post  of  Adjutant  to  the  Intendant  of 
Normandy,  and  sent  him  to  Rouen  in  1639. 

All  Pascal's  work  and  inventions  were  struck  out 
directly  from  the  friction  of  life.  Impressed  into 
the  tremendous  business  of  his  father's  office  at 
Rouen,  the  young  mathematician,  at  sixteen  years 
of  age,  conceived  the  idea  of  a  mechanical  ready 
reckoner,  independent  of  the  will,  and  gave  himself 
to  this  invention  with  a  passion  and  energy  which' 
filled  more  than  two  years  of  his  youth,  devising 
more  than  fifty  different  models,  and  overseeing  in 
person  the  artisans  entrusted  with  their  carrying  out. 
How  characteristic  of  Pascal  this  swooping  down  on 
a  chance  problem,  this  fierce  and  obstinate  pursuing 
of  it  to  a  sure  result !  Lord  St.  Cyres  was  happily 
inspired  in  calling  him  "the  knight-errant  of 
geometry,  wandering  hither  and  thither  in  search  of 
questions  worthy  of  his  steel."  The  calculating 
machine  of  Pascal  is  the  ancestor  of  all  our  modern 
multiplicators,  the  little  boxes  that  hand  out  our 
change  on  the  counters  of  shops,  the  mechanical 
computators  of  taxi-cabs,  the  mathematical  machines 
used  in  scientific  laboratories.  And  Pascal  pursued 
this  adventure  as  simply  as  later  he  designed  or 
perfected  the  barometer,  the  hydraulic  press,  the 
wheelbarrow,  the  omnibus,  the  dray. 

The  town  of  Rouen,  in  which  he  spent  seven 
years,  was  a  centre  of  that  neo-Stoicism  which,  to 


PASCAL  15 

the  France  of  those  days,  meant  all  that  the  different 
forms  of  neo-Buddhism — Theosophy,  Christian 
Science,  the  Higher  Thought,  etc. — have  meant  of 
late  to  our  English-speaking  world :  a  religion 
within  a  religion,  a  cultus  of  the  cultured,  having  its 
high  priests  and  its  high  places.  In  Rouen,  where 
the  editions  of  Du  Vair  fell  frequent  from  the  press, 
Pascal  could  not  but  make  acquaintance  with  that 
renewer  of  the  Stoics,  as  well  as  with  Montaigne 
(for  every  country  gentleman  in  those  days  had  a 
copy  of  the  Essays  on  his  mantelpiece),  and  above 
all  with  Epictetus.  The  two  last  were  thenceforth 
incorporate  with  Pascal's  mind.  We  shall  hear  of 
his  debt  to  Montaigne.  From  Epictetus  he  took 
that  bold  plain  writing,  that  direct  bareness  of 
thought  and  word,  that  simplicity  and  homeliness 
of  image,  which  make  the  style  of  Pascal  as  alive  as 
fire  or  running  water.  The  ideas  of  these  masters 
were  a  preparation  to  Port  Royal,  for  the  Stoics 
made  morality  completely  interior  :  they  were  neces- 
sarians, who  eliminated  from  the  world  every 
element  of  chance  and  spontaneity ;  and  their  dogma 
of  universal  determinism  was  combined  with  an  idea 
of  fraternal  love  and  mutual  charity. 

In  Rouen  of  late  their  doctrines  had  suffered  a 
romantic,  heroic  transfiguration  in  the  plays  of  a 
poet,  Corneille,  a  friend  of  the  family  of  Pascal. 
The  Cid,  the  Horatii,  Cinna,  peopled  the  stage  with 
creations  whose  force  of  will,  whose  passions  tragic- 
ally at  war  with  necessity  and  virtue,  whose  mastery 


16  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

over  self,  whose  aloof,  detached,  triumphant  souls 
embody  the  principles  of  Du  Vair  and  of  his  teacher. 

The  Stoics  left  their  mark  on  Pascal;  a  more 
crucial  experience  was  that  of  his  first  contact  with 
the  spirit  of  Jansenism. 

In  January  1646  Etienne  Pascal,  being  at  that 
time  about  fifty  years  of  age,  slipped  on  the  ice  and 
put  his  hip-bone  out  of  joint;  a  long  illness  ensued 
which  orthodox  surgery  failed  to  cure,  and  the 
Intendant  put  himself  in  the  hands  of  two  country 
gentlemen  living  near  Rouen,  M.  des  Landes  and 
M.  de  la  Bouteillerie,  who  had  a  great  reputation 
as  amateur  bone-setters  and  spent  their  lives  in 
doctoring  the  poor. 

These  two  honest  quacks  were  Quakers — or  rather 
they  were  Jansenists.  During  a  stay  of  three  months 
which  they  made  in  the  Intendant's  house  at  Rouen, 
the  gentlemen  bone-setters  spoke  frequently  with 
young  Pascal  of  predestination,  of  necessity,  and 
grace.  There  was  in  their  system  a  unity,  a  logic, 
a  completeness  which  awoke  Pascal's  enthusiasm. 
Nothing  is  more  difficult  for  a  man  of  science  to 
believe  than  the  doctrine  of  free-will;  nothing 
appears  more  evident  than  predestination,  or  (as 
we  say)  determinism.  M.  des  Landes  and  M.  de 
la  Bouteillerie  did  not  only  expound  and  explain  : 
they  promised.  They  aroused  an  inkling  of  un- 
utterable hopes.  Their  doctrine  of  the  interior 
man,  their  assurance  of  a  new  heart  and  an  inward 
illumination,  their  revelation  of  the  miracle  of  grace, 


PASCAL  17 

transfigured  the  moral  horizon  of  the  young  Stoic. 
He  read  with  avidity  the  books  of  St.  Cyran,  of 
Arnauld,  of  Jansenius,  of  St.  Augustine,  of  all  the 
spiritual  heroes  of  Port  Royal.  We  cannot  imagine 
now  the  piercing  freshness,  the  poignant  novelty  of 
these  treatises — unless,  perhaps,  we  picture  some 
earnest  Russian  suddenly  acquainted  with  the  works 
of  Tolstoi.  For  Pascal,  at  least,  they  constituted  a 
new  gospel,  a  divine  initiation. 

Until  he  had  reached  his  three-and-twentieth 
year,  nothing  foretold  in  Pascal  that  passion  of  high 
spirituality,  that  religious  genius,  which  succeeding 
centuries  associate  with  his  name.  As  a  child  he 
had  re-invented  geometry,  and  with  a  piece  of  char- 
coal had  sketched  his  "  barres  "  and  his  "  ronds  "  on 
all  the  walls  and  floors  of  his  father's  house.  He 
had  not  "  found  religion."  He  had  written,  as  soon 
as  he  could  write,  a  "  Treatise  on  Sounds  " ;  at  six- 
teen, a  "  Treatise  on  Conic  Sections  " ;  at  twenty  he 
had  invented  his  arithmetical  machine.  The  energy 
and  passion  of  his  nature  had  been  wholly  absorbed 
by  science. 

No  doubt  he  had  learned  his  catechism  at  his 
father's  knee,  had  been  confirmed  in  his  parish 
church  at  Paris;  but  the  early  history  of  Pascal 
shows  no  trace  of  the  religious  precocity  of  a  Saint 
Theresa.  At  this  date  the  Pascals  were  pious  folk, 
but  not  among  the  unco'  good;  Catholics  and  Stoics, 
physicists  and  churchgoers,  they  cared  for  science, 
poetry,  success,  advancement,  fame  and  fortune; 


18  THE  FRENCH   IDEAL 

and  confidently  hoped  to  make  the  best  of  both 
worlds.  They  had  "une  vertu  morale,  mais  point 
du  tout  une  vertu  chrestienne,"  as  Marguerite  Perier 
was  to  write  of  them. 

And  now,  his  whole  nature  shaken  by  the  long 
and  dangerous  illness  of  his  father,  the  young  Pascal 
listened  to  the  two  honest  quacks  who  came  to  cure 
him.  And  there  was  something  in  their  doctrine  that 
captivated  the  scientific  spirit  of  the  inventor,  al- 
though nothing  in  these  missionaries'  eyes  was  so 
dire  an  obstacle  to  salvation  as  the  desire  of  know- 
ledge :  libido  sciendi.  Saints  and  charlatans,  their 
animus  against  official  science  was  as  sincere  as  their 
belief  in  grace.  Yet  it  was  the  intelligence  of  Pascal 
rather  than  his  heart  which  followed  their  teaching. 
They  spoke  of  a  Hidden  Unity — Deus  absconditus 
—incommensurable  with  the  narrow  intelligence  of 
man ;  they  spoke  of  the  corruption  of  our  nature  by 
original  sin,  the  perverseness  of  the  human  heart, 
unreconciled  to  the  idea  of  God ;  their  voice  sank  as 
they  told  of  the  many  called,  the  few  chosen.  And 
the  two  Norman  Jansenists  opened  to  Pascal's  eager 
mind  a  whole  new  conception  of  life,  appalling,  won- 
derful, full  of  eternal  and  divine  compensations. 

How  marvellous  was  their  division  of  the  universe 
into  different  orders,  or  hierarchies,  of  which  some 
are  visible  but  vain,  others  intangible,  unseen,  yet 
eternal  and  alone  important !  And  how  wonderful 
their  assurance  that  we  may  pass  beyond  the  limited 
experience  of  individuals  and  lose  ourselves  in  that 
immense  unknown  Reality  which'  eddies  unseen 


PASCAL  19 

behind  the  screen  of  Nature !  This  new  religion 
—with  its  supernatural  Grace  playing  like  a  ray  of 
heavenly  sunshine  over  the  fixed  order  of  pre- 
ordained necessity,  like  sunshine  on  the  iceberg  it 
may  melt;  this  mingling  of  miracle  and  a  strict 
determinism  was  yet  more  akin  to  the  central  self 
of  Pascal  than  the  teaching  of  the  Stoics  with  their 
commandments  of  law  and  duty.  He  was  as  a  man 
who  hears,  enchanted,  bewildered,  some  words  of 
his  native  language,  long  forgotten,  but  suddenly 
aroused  into  life  and  remembrance. 

Pascal  was  born  to  convert  and  subdue.  His  first 
disciple  was  Jacqueline,  the  charming  young  poetess, 
light-hearted  and  reasonable.  She  was  at  that  time 
sought  in  marriage  by  a  young  councillor  of  the 
Parliament  of  Rouen.  Perhaps  an  unconscious 
jealousy  aided  Pascal  to  pursue  her  conversion  and 
break  off  the  match  ?  Next  he  persuaded  his  father, 
the  convalescent;  then  his  married  sister  and  her 
husband.  Gilberte  Perier,  a  young  beauty  of  six- 
and-twenty,  arrived  in  Rouen  innocently  full  of  her 
consequence,  intelligence  and  station;  entered  in  her 
laced  gown,  her  bonny  freshness  and  her  worldly 
ways — was  touched  by  grace,  and  thenceforth  went 
austerely  in  sad-coloured  garments  and  plainly 
braided  hair.  Jacqueline  gave  up  her  hope  of 
marriage,  her  young  glory,  her  pretty  gift  of  verse, 
aspired  to  the  veil,  and  lived  (as  near  as  might  be  in 
the  world)  the  strict  religious  life. 

For  Jansenism,  if  a  theory,  was  even  more  a  way 
of  life,  a  practice  of  sanctity,  a  continual  training 

C  2 


20  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

in  austerity  and  virtue — a  reform  of  Catholic  doc- 
trine— a  return  to  the  Primitive  Church — a  Renais- 
sance of  Christianity.  M.  de  la  Bouteillerie  and 
M.  des  Landes  were  enthusiastic  apostles  of  this 
sublime  renewal ;  and  the  ardour,  the  fanaticism,  the 
difficulty,  the  audacity  of  their  enterprise  inflamed 
the  daring  heart  of  Pascal. 

If  Port  Royal  was  the  ideal  of  young  Pascal, 
Pascal  himself,  at  three-and-twenty  years  of  age, 
was  very  far  indeed  from  being  the  ideal  of  Port 
Royal.  He  was  still  instinct  with  the  libido  sdendi, 
the  libido  sentiendi,  the  libido  dominandi;  the  lust 
after  knowledge,  the  desire  of  feeling,  the  love  of 
power :  three  dragons  that  bar  all  access  to  the 
Jansenist's  narrow,  thorny  way !  .  .  .  Blaise  Pascal 
was  full  of  pent  activities  and  vague  premonitions 
of  his  gifts.  That  humble,  mediocre,  sober  style  of 
speech;  that  way  of  mind,  exact,  severe  and  plain, 
which  Port  Royal  demanded  of  its  penitents,  were 
not  in  the  manner  of  this  passionate,  exalted,  this 
extravagant  family  of  Auvergnats — children  of  the 
volcano,  and  friends  of  Corneille !  The  young 
convert — who  doubtless  felt  already  the  promise  of 
the  Provinciales  swelling  in  his  breast — offered  to 
place  his  pen  at  the  service  of  Port  Royal.  We  can 
imagine  the  startled  piety  of  his  director,  M.  de 
Rebours.  Was  this  meekness  ?  Was  this  contrition  ? 

"Je  lui  dis  avec  ma  franchise  et  ma  naivete 
ordinaires,  que  nous  avions  vu  leurs  livres  et  ceux 
de  leurs  adversaires;  que  c'etait  assez  pour  lui  faire 
entendre  que  nous  etions  de  leurs  sentiments.  II 


PASCAL  21 

m'en  temoigna  quelque  joie.  Je  lui  dis  ensuite  que 
je  pensais  que  Ton  pouvait,  suivant  les  principes  du 
sens  commun,  demontrer  beaucoup  de  choses  que 
les  adversaires  disent  lui  etre  contraires.  .  .  .  Ce 
furent  mes  propres  termes,  ou  je  ne  crois  pas  qu'il 
y  ait  de  quoi  blesser  la  plus  severe  modestie." 

This  was  not  the  opinion  of  the  severer  M.  de 
Rebours,  who  found  his  proselyte's  discourse 
"  etrange "  "  and  answered  me  in  so  mild  and 
modest  a  way  that  my  pride  and  presumption  would 
have  been  turned  aside,  had  I  possessed  them." 
And  so  the  dialogue  continues,  hopelessly  em- 
broiled; the  young  geometrician  eager  to  break  a 
lance  for  the  Augustinus;  the  old  confessor  anxious 
above  all  to  refrain  the  vanity,  the  love  of  supremacy, 
which  he  discerns  in  his  imperious  penitent :  "  de 
sorte  que  toute  celle  entrevue  se  passa  dans  cette 
equivoque  et  dans  un  embarras  qui  a  continue  dans 
toutes  les  autres,  et  qui  ne  s'est  pu  debrouiller." 

M.  de  Rebours  was  a  leader  of  souls — he  was  not 
a  fisher  of  men.  He  saw,  plainly  enough,  the  pride, 
the  passion,  the  love  of  combat  and  the  lust  of  sway 
in  his  new  penitent;  he  did  not  discern  his  incom- 
parable value,  nor  guess  that  he  rejected  a  pearl  of 
great  price.2  And  Pascal,  thrown  back  upon  him- 
self, with  all  his  useless  fervour  unemployed,  indig- 
nant at  these  "  rebuffades  "•  —the  buifets  and  rebuffs 
of  his  confessor — began  unconsciously  to  seek 

1  Lettre  de  Blaise  Pascal  a  Madame  Perier,  sa  sceur.    Brunsch- 
vicg:  Pen  sees  d1  Opuscules,  p.  85. 

2  For  these  details  of  Pascal's  first  conversion,  we  refer  the 
reader  to  M.  H.  Petitot's  Pascal:  sa  vie  rehgieuse. 


22  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

another  way  to  employ  the  imprisoned  genius  in 
his  brain.  Pascal  was  born  to  invent,  to  argue,  to 
teach,  to  conquer — not  to  submit.  Had  M.  de 
Rebours  been  M.  de  Saint-Cyran,  he  would  not 
have  sent  his  neophyte — his  passionate,  despotic 
neophyte — disappointed  and  empty  away. 

Pascal's  was  an  active,  emotional  nature.  He  saw 
no  battlefield  to  employ  his  ardours.  He  had  con- 
verted all  his  family — pursued  for  heresy  one  of  the 
most  popular  preachers  in  Rouen.  Having  swept 
all  before  him,  he  suddenly  flagged.  The  libido 
sciendi  still  held  him  fast.  A  Jansenist  in  March, 
and  an  apostle;  by  October  he  was  all  aflame  for 
some  new  experiments  on  atmospheric  pressure. 
.  .  .  Men  often  take  their  imagination  for  their 
heart,  and  believe  themselves  religious  because  they 
admire  religion. 

Pascal,  at  three-and-twenty  years  of  age,  was  a 
delicate,  handsome  youth.  In  the  sketch  by  Domat, 
and  in  the  portrait  of  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale, 
both  of  them  taken  later,  he  still  looks  very  young. 
The  hair,  fine  and  soft,  not  very  abundant,  waves 
on  the  shoulders  in  the  graceful  fashion  of  those 
days.  The  eyes,  long  and  yet  large,  with  their  look 
of  candour  and  melancholy,  of  dreamy  aloofness, 
under  their  arched  noble  brows,  shed  over  the  cold 
yet  pleasant  features  their  own  poetic  and  peculiar 
charm.  They  recall  the  eyes  of  Shelley,  and  are 
such  as  we  associate  with  genius  of  the  automatic 
and  unconscious  sort — that  which  finds  and  takes, 
not  that  which  seeks  and  wrestles :  Mozart,  not 


PASCAL  23 

Beethoven;  Raphael,  not  Michel  Angelo.  The  nose, 
too  long  for  a  perfect  proportion,  is  aquiline  and 
proud,  with  distended  nostrils.  The  lips  (which  in 
the  death-mask  we  shall  know  so  firm,  so  patient, 
breathing  inaudibly  their  secretum  meum  mihi  /), 
those  lips  in  youth  were  full,  pursed  a  little,  almost 
pouting,  in  a  brooding  sort  of  smile.  Sorrowful  in 
the  portrait  of  Domat,  the  smile  of  the  portrait  in 
the  National  Library  has  an  air  of  pleasant  im- 
pertinence, a  gallant  disdain,  that  is  quite  taking 
and  agreeable,  and  this,  we  imagine,  was  the 
expression  of  the  Pascal  of  1646,  a  youth  of 
twenty-three. 

The  health  of  this  young  man  (who  had  suffered 
in  his  infancy  from  a  tubercular  enteritis)  had 
already  succumbed  to  the  stress  and  strain  of  his 
intellectual  life;  but  between  the  recurrent  crises  of 
a  nervous  exhaustion,  his  elastic  temperament  re- 
bounded, fine  and  fresh  and  fierce,  always  ready  to 
carry  war  into  any  man's  camp,  to  argue,  convert, 
oppose,  invent,  combine.  He  was  constantly 
occupied  with  the  construction  of  his  arithmetical 
machines,  which  could  only  be  produced  by  the 
most  skilled  artisans  under  his  direct  supervision; 
he  supplied  them  to  Christian  Huygens,  Roberval, 
the  Chancellor  Seguier,  Queen  Christina  of  Sweden, 
and  many  others.  I  have  seen  and  handled  one  of 
the  rare  examples  that  remain ;  its  starry  wheels  are 
hewn  and  filed  out  of  the  solid  brass ;  at  once  strong 
and  exquisite  in  the  simplicity  of  its  precision,  it 
recalls  the  literary  style  of  Pascal !  We  must 


24  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

imagine  him  as  a  young  incipient  Edison  or  Mar- 
coni, full  of  the  love  of  power,  the  tenacious 
ambition  of  supremacy,  the  impatience  of  incom- 
petence. Fastidious  and  fine,  curious  and  com- 
bative, little  in  his  way  of  life  as  yet  suggests  the 
saint.  Even  his  conversion — which  his  passionate 
and  arbitrary  spirit  enforced  on  kith  and  kin- 
appears  to  have  been  accompanied  with  scant 
renewal  of  the  heart.  His  life  was  pure ;  but  it  had 
ever  been  pure.  Too  great  an  intellectual  flame 
consumed  him  to  leave  place  for  sensations  less 
subtle. 


IV 

It  was  in  October  1646,  a  few  months  after  his 
adhesion  to  the  doctrines  of  Jansenius,  that  Pascal 
met  in  Rouen  his  friend  Pierre  Petit,  the  military 
engineer,  on  his  way  to  Dieppe.  Petit  told  him  of 
a  remarkable  experiment  made  three  years  ago  in 
Italy,  which  Mersenne  had  tried  to  repeat  in  Paris, 
but  imperfectly,  owing  to  the  difficulty  of  procuring 
the  glass  pipes  and  tubes  in  the  necessary  propor- 
tions ;  which  experiment,  if  it  could  be  made,  would 
prove  that  Nature  does  not  abhor  a  vacuum,  as  the 
schoolmen  maintained.  Pascal,  with  his  hatred  of 
fine  phrases  that  mean  nothing  definite — Pascal,  the 
skilful  experimenter  and  inventor  in  physical  science 
— caught  fire  at  once.  There  was  one  of  the  best 
glass  foundries  in  France  at  Rouen.  Pascal  ordered 
the  necessary  pipes — forty  feet  long — for  water  or 


PASCAL  25 

wine,  and  the  tubes — four  feet  in  length — for  quick- 
silver; and  began  to  prove,  with  endless  variation 
and  recurrence,  that  theory  of  atmospheric  pressure 
which  is  one  of  his  greatest  contributions  to  science, 
but  with  which,  here,  we  should  have  little  to  do,  save 
that  by  some  of  its  side-consequences  it  really  did 
affect  the  soul,  and  showed  the  workings  of  the 
mind,  of  Pascal. 

Surely  no  experiment  ever  woke  such  a  storm 
of  controversy.  Almost  immediately  Pascal's  dis- 
covery was  contested;  he  was  accused  of  having 
niched  it  from  Torricelli.  In  Poland,  a  monk, 
Valerio  Magni,  claimed  precedence.  Pascal  had 
instructed  Florin  Perier  to  carry  the  tube  from  the 
valley  to  the  summit  of  the  Puy  de  Dome,  measur- 
ing the  height  of  the  quicksilver  at  the  top  and  at 
the  bottom;  and,  when  he  heard  of  this,  Descartes, 
ever  jealous  of  his  superiority,  declared  that  he 
had  suggested  this  particular  experiment. 

Of  late  years  the  discussion  has  revived  with  even 
greater  virulence.  In  a  series  of  articles  published 
in  the  Revue  de  Paris  l  M.  Felix  Mathieu  (with  a 
subtility,  a  passion,  a  prejudice,  a  partiality,  that 
there  is  a  wild  justice  in  applying  to  the  author  of 
the  Provinciates)  renews  and  reinforces  the  com- 
plaint of  Descartes.  He  accuses  Pascal  of  having 
stolen  another  experiment  from  his  friend,  Auzoult 
of  Rouen,  and  concludes  with  a  definite  accusa- 
tion :  "La  lettre  que  Pascal  dit  avoir  ecrite  le  15 

1  Revue  de  Paris,  ier  avril,    15  avril,  ier  mai,   1906;  i"  mars, 
15  mars,  15  avril,  1907. 


26  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

novembre  1647  a  son  beau-frere  Perier  pour  le  prier 
de  monter  sur  le  Puy  de  Dome  est  un  faux." 

But  Pascal  possesses  the  mysterious  power  of 
certain  magical  personalities  (such  as  Shelley,  Mary 
Stuart,  Joan  of  Arc)  of  surviving  indefinitely  in  the 
hearts  of  their  race,  and  provoking  posthumous 
passions  and  adorations  no  less  fervent  than  those 
excited  by  their  living  presence.  The  diatribe  of 
M.  Felix  Mathieu  has  stimulated  the  lovers  of 
Pascal  to  fresh  researches  and  to  a  new  display  of 
zeal.  The  Defense  de  Pascal  by  M.  Abel  Lefranc, 
the  critical  studies  of  M.  Milhaud,  M.  Louis  Havet, 
M.  Brunschvicg  and  M.  Duhem;  above  all,  the 
Histoire  de  Pascal  of  M.  Strowski,  and  the  incom- 
parable edition  of  Pascal's  works  by  MM.  Brunsch- 
vicg and  Boutroux,  have  enlarged  our  knowledge 
and  let  some  light  on  this  obscure  and  puzzling 
chapter  in  the  history  of  science.  And  we  may 
rest  assured  that  Pascal  was  not  a  forger,  nor  a 
thief,  nor  a  scientific  brigand ;  that  he  did  not  "  fake  " 
a  letter,  antedated,  and  produce  it  as  evidence  of 
his  priority  in  a  discovery;  on  the  other  hand, 
we  cannot  acquit  him  of  some  precipitancy  and 
prejudice,  of  certain  grave  inaccuracies  of  statement, 
of  a  way  of  wresting  facts  to  prove  his  own  advan- 
tage which  sprang  from  his  passionate  conviction 
that  he,  and  not  his  adversary,  must  be  in  the  right. 
He,  too,  was  jealous  of  his  superiority.  His  "  humeur 
bouillante  "  (as  Jacqueline  calls  it)  more  than  once 
led  him  astray.  And  the  nervous  breakdown  from 
which  he  suffered  at  this  time  flung  him  from  mood 


PASCAL 


PASCAL  27 

to  mood,  from  an  excitable  restlessness  to  a  dis- 
dainful languor,  while  exaggerating  that  "inexacti; 
tude  "  which  Nicole,  his  friend  of  Port  Royal,  was 
later  to  deplore,  in  the  "  ramasseur  de  coquilles." 

V 

It  was  in  the  middle  of  his  experiments  at  Rouen, 
during  the  summer  of  1647,  tnat  tne  irascible  and 
charming  young  inventor  fell  seriously  ill.    So  soon 
as  he  was  fit  to  travel,  his  father  sent  him  to  Paris 
in  the  charge  of  Jacqueline,  his  nurse  and  secretary, 
in  order  to  consult  the  best  physicians.    His  malady 
puzzled  the  Norman  doctors  :  a  constant  dull  head- 
ache, an  invincible  languor,  an  incapacity  for  sus- 
tained attention,  a  coldness  and  numbness  of  the  feet 
and  legs  simulating  paralysis.    Dragging  himself  to 
and  fro  on  crutches,  fed  on  asses'  milk,  filled  with 
nervous  qualms  as  to  his  bodily  health,  and  with 
still  graver  apprehensions  as  to  the  destiny  of  his 
immortal  soul,  Pascal  arrived  in  Paris  to  find  him- 
self famous.    The  news  of  his  tests  and  trials,  which 
proved  the  possibility  of  a  vacuum,  had  preceded  his 
arrival.    The  initial  attempts  made  in  Italy,  in  1643, 
were  little  known  in  France;  it  was  not  yet  certain 
that  Torricelli  had  invented  an  experiment,  which 
Pascal  had  applied,  and  from  whic"h  he  had  deduced 
a  law ;  the  savants  of  Mersenne's  circle  confused  the 
experiments  of   Florence  and  the  experiments  of 
Rouen,  some  attributing  all  the  merit  to  Galileo  and 
his  pupils,  the  others  ascribing  the  entire  honour  to 
Pascal. 


28  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Meanwhile  the  invalid  was  torn  in  twain  between 
the  conception  of  eternity  and  that  "recherche  des 
secrets  de  la  Nature  qui  ne  nous  regardent  point, 
qu'il  est  inutile  de  connaitre,"  which  Jansenius  con- 
demns in  his  Reformation  de  Vhomme  inteneur. 
Torricelli's  experiment  was  more  to  him  than  just 
a  brilliant  scientific  proof  :  it  meant  that  we  mortals, 
living  on  the  earth,  are  surrounded  by  forces  of 
whose  existence  nothing  in  our  senses  makes  us 
aware,  although  their  energies  encompass  all  our 
life,  perpetually  acting  on  us,  pressing  us  on  every 
side,  and  causing  the  familiar  facts  of  our  universe. 
Atmospheric  pressure  was,  to  the  world  of   1647, 
as  illuminating  and  startling  a  conception  as  the 
existence  of  radium  or  the  discovery  of  the  Hertzian 
waves  has  been  to  our  own  times.    So  (while  Pascal 
accompanies  Jacqueline  to  church  and  visits  with 
her  the  house  of    Port   Royal   in  the   Rue   Saint 
Jacques,  abetting  her  in  her  desire  to  take  the  veil) 
he  is  none  the  less  passionately  interested  in  the 
arguments   of   Roberval   and   Mersenne.  .  .  .  The 
variety   and    infinity   of    Nature   moves   him   to   a 
religious  presentiment  of  that  which  lies  behind; 
and   at   this   moment,   probably,   he   writes   in   his 
Pensees:  "  Que  cet  effet   de  la   Nature,  qui  vous 
semblait   impossible    auparavant,   vous    fasse   con- 
naitre qu'il  peut  y  en  avoir  d'autres  que  vous  ne 
connaissez  pas  encore  !  "    His  mind  was  like  one  of 
those  great  modern  organs,  with  their  various  key- 
boards, their  sets  of  stops  and  pedals,  which  seem 
an  orchestra  rather  than  an  instrument;  with  one 


PASCAL  29 

hand  he  pressed  the  clavier  of  physical  science, 
while  the  other  pulled  out  the  "  Celestial  voice " ; 
and  from  this  dissociation  of  his  spiritual  elements 
there  resulted  a  harmony  in  complexity,  Hut  also 
some  lessening  of  mental  co-ordination. 

In  September  1647  Pascal  and  Jacqueline  were  in 
Paris  in  their  father's  house  of  the  Rue  Brisemiche. 
Two  letters,  one  from  each',  published  in  the  edition 
of  MM.  Brunschvicg  and  Boutroux,  paint  for  us  the 
curious  life  they  led,  made  up  in  equal  parts  of 
science,  medicine  and  devotion.  It  is  Sunday,  the 
22nd  of  September.  Pascal  is  at  church  hearing 
vespers  when  some  friends  call  on  Jacqueline,  and 
ask  if  her  brother  can  receive  Descartes  at  nine 
o'clock  the  morrow  morning.  "Je  fus  assez 
empeschee  de  respondre,  a  cause  que  je  S9avois 
qu'il  a  peine  a  se  contraindre  et  a  parler,  particuliere- 
ment  le  matin"  (a  frequent  symptom  with  nervous 
invalids).  In  the  course  of  the  evening  the  barber- 
surgeon  calls  to  bleed  Pascal,  and  on  the  morrow 
morning,  languid  but  lucid,  he  receives  the  great 
philosopher  (who  was  his  father's  antagonist),  with 
several  of  Descartes'  disciples,  and  his  own  old 
friend,  Roberval.  After  admiring  the  arithmetical 
machine,  they  fell  to  talking  of  Pascal's  experi- 
ments on  the  vacuum,  which  Descartes  immediately 
declared  to  be  no  void,  but  filled  with  a  "subtle 
matter " — "  Mon  frere  luy  repondit  ce  qu'il  put." 
We  hear  an  echo  of  the  weariness  of  Pascal,  of  the 
physicist's  incurable  disdain  for  the  metaphysician, 
to  whom  theories  are  as  real  as  facts,  and  words 


30  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

as  true  as  things.  "And  M.  de  Roberval, 
thinking  my  brother  was  too  tired  to  talk,  fell  foul 
of  M.  Descartes,  who  answered  somewhat  tartly." 

Thereupon  the  savants  depart  in  the  same  coach, 
bandying  jokes  and  bantering  "  un  peu  plus  fort  que 
jeu."  But  on  the  Tuesday  morning  at  eight  o'clock 
Descartes  returned.  He  examined  Pascal's  physical 
state,  "  and  told  him  to  lie  in  bed  very  late  of  a 
morning,  every  day,  until  tired  of  lying  still,  and  so 
take  plenty  of  broth  " — not  bad  advice  for  neuras- 
thenia. But  they  must  have  spoken  of  many  other 
things,  adds  Jacqueline,  for  Descartes  remained 
until  eleven  o'clock— "but  I  cannot  tell  you  what 
they  said,  for  yesterday  I  was  not  present;  we  were 
so  busy  all  day  long,  preparing  and  getting  him  to 
take  his  first  bath."  'Tis  a  pity  that  Mary  then 
played  the  part  of  Martha,  that  Jacqueline  did  not 
hear  the  talk  that  went  forward,  since,  for  lack  of 
such  a  witness,  we  shall  never  know  if  indeed 
Descartes  did  in  any  degree  suggest  the  great  ex- 
periment of  the  Puy  de  Dome!  On  the  i$th  of 
November  Pascal  wrote  to  Perier  that  letter,  giving 
the  conditions  of  the  test,  which  M.  Mathieu  assumes 
to  be  a  forgery.  On  the  i3th  of  December  Descartes 
wrote  from  Holland  to  Mersenne  :  "  I  had  told  M. 
Pascal  it  would  be  well  to  try  if  the  quicksilver  rose 
as  high  in  the  tube,  when  it  is  on  the  top  of  a  moun- 
tain, as  when  it  is  at  the  bottom ;  I  don't  know  if  he 
made  the  experiment."  In  June  1648  Descartes  was 
again  in  Paris.  On  the  22nd  of  September  (just  a 
year  after  the  first  meeting  of  Pascal  and  Descartes) 


PASCAL  31 

Florin  Perier  writes  from  Clermont-Ferrand  to  state 
that  he  has  satisfactorily  accomplished  the  great 
experiment  which  proved  the  reality  of  atmospheric 
pressure.  And  Descartes  writes  to  Carcavi,  on  the 
nth  of  June,  1649— 

"Je  vous  prie  de  m'apprendre  le  succez  d'une 
experience  qu'on  m'a  dit  que  Monsieur  Pascal  avoit 
faite,  ou  fait  faire,  sur  les  montagnes  d'Auvergne, 
pour  s^avoir  si  le  Vif-argent  monte  plus  haut  dans 
le  tuyau  estant  au  pied  de  la  montagne,  et  de  com- 
bien  il  monte  plus  haut  que  dessus.  J'aurois  droit 
d'attendre  cela  de  luy  plustost  que  de  vous,  parce 
que  c'est  moy  qui  Fay  advise,  il  y  a  deux  ans,  de 
faire  cette  experience  et  qui  1'ay  assure  que  bien  que 
je  ne  1'eusse  pas  faite,  je  ne  doutois  point  du 
succez." 

And  again  on  the  i/th  of  August  of  the  same 
year — 

"Je  vous  suis  tres  oblige  de  la  peine  que  vous 
avez  prise  de  m'ecrire  le  succez  de  1'experience  de 
Monsieur  Pascal.  .  .  .  J'avois  quelque  interet  de  le 
s^avoir  a  cause  que  c'est  moy  qui  1'avois  prie  il  y  a 
deux  ans  de  la  vouloir  faire  .  .  .  sans  quoi  il  n'eust 
eu  garde  d'y  penser,  a  cause  qu'il  estoit  d'opinion 
contraire." 

Descartes    attributes    Pascal's    silence    and    bad 

i 

grace  to  the  influence  of  Roberval — "il  suit  les 
passions  de  son  Amy"— for  Descartes  and 
Roberval  were  aye  at  daggers  drawn.  Nothing  can 
be  clearer  than  the  claims  of  the  philosopher;  but 
we  must  remember  that  when  he  visited  Pascal  in 
Paris,  he  scarcely  seemed  to  grasp  the  drift  and  crux 


32  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

of  the  question,  his  mind  being  full  of  a  meta- 
physical conception  of  his  own  "  la  matiere  subtile." 
And  was  it  not  Descartes  who  wrote  in  one  of  his 
letters  to  Mersenne,  in  speaking  of  the  works  of 
Viete  :  "  On  doit  se  persuader  que  nos  neveux  ne 
trouveront  jamais  rien  en  cette  matiere  que  je  ne 
pusse  avoir  trouve  aussi  bien  qu'eux,  si  j'eusse  voulu 
prendre  la  peine  de  le  chercher  "  ?  Such  appears  to 
have  been  his  habitual  attitude  of  mind.  In  the  eyes  of 
their  contemporaries — of  Auzoult,  Roberval,  Perier, 
Pascal  himself — Pascal  was  the  inventor  of  the 
experiment  of  the  Puy  de  Dome.  But  it  is  probable 
that  every  man  living  at  a  certain  lofty  intellectual 
level  has  in  his  mind  an  obscure  inkling — a  germ— 
of  the  proximate  discovery  which  is  about  to  reform 
our  views  of  Nature  :  so  that,  the  fact  once  proved, 
in  all  sincerity  he  recognises  an  idea  which  he  pos- 
sessed, indeed,  but  knew  not  how  to  formulate. 
The  ray  of  sunshine  may  have  slanted  across  a  whole 
mountain-side  before  it  leaps  into  flame  on  the 
burning-glass — but  only  the  burning-glass  gave  birth 
to  the  fire ! 

That  burning-glass,  I  think,  was  the  mind  of 
Pascal.  And  certainly  it  was  Pascal  who,  transport- 
ing to  water  the  experiments  he  had  made  on  air, 
invented  the  theory  of  the  equilibrium  of  liquids, 
and,  afterwards,  the  hydraulic  press.  But  all  this 
contest  and  controversy  were  infinitely  humiliating, 
exasperating  in  the  last  degree.  One  line  in  the 
Pensees  is  eloquent  of  his  distress— 


PASCAL  33 

"J'avais  passe  longtemps  dans  1'etude  des 
sciences  abstraites,  et  le  peu  de  communication 
qu'on  en  peut  avoir  m'en  avait  degoute." 

The  lack  of  communication :  Torricelli  in 
Florence;  Descartes  in  Holland;  Mersenne  in 
Paris;  and  Pascal  himself,  with  his  father  and 
family,  in  Auvergne  (for  to  the  mountains  of  his 
native  place  old  Etienne  had  carried  off  his 
treasured  son  and  daughter,  to  break  the  ties  that 
knit  them  to  Port  Royal  and  to  restore  their  health). 
How  at  this  distance  should  these  men  of  science 
confer  together,  establishing  exactly  what  belongs 
to  each  ?  They  stand  at  the  ends  of  the  earth ;  and 
soon  a  vaster  abyss  divides  them.  Torricelli  dies 
in  1647,  Mersenne  in  1648,  Descartes  in  1650,  and 
Etienne  Pascal  himself  was  to  die  in  1651.  Pascal 
remains  alone. 

"Ah,  le  peu  de  communication  qu'on  peut 
avoir !  " 


VI 

But  it  was  not  religion  that  reaped  the  benefit  of 
his  detachment  from  physical  science.  A  little  while 
before  the  death  of  Etienne  Pascal,  his  son,  return- 
ing from  Paris  to  Auvergne,  had  met,  and  struck  up 
a  great  friendship  with,  a  gifted  young  man  some 
four  or  five  years  younger  than  himself — the  Duke 
of  Roannez.  In  a  transport  of  mutual  affection,  the 
young  inventor  was  admitted  to  the  serious,  yet 
elegant  and  intellectual,  circle  which  the  Duke 


84  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

adorned,  and  installed  in  a  set  of  chambers  in  his 
mansion.  The  two  were  inseparable.  Pascal  found 
this  noble  world  enchanting — far  more  delightful 
than  that  where  Descartes  and  the  vociferous 
Roberval  went  jeering  and  bantering  in  their  jars 
and  quarrels.  In  this  new  sphere  there  reigned 
something  noble  yet  subtle,  romantic  yet  sincere, 
which  touched  a  secret  fibre  in  Jacqueline's  brother, 
accustomed  from  his  childhood  to  the  refinements 
of  the  Precieux.  To  Pascal's  dying  day,  the  young 
Duke,  his  sister  Mademoiselle  de  Roannez,  and 
their  friends,  those  charming  sceptics  Mere  and 
Miton,  existed  in  his  mind  as  persons  nonpareil. 

.When  in  the  Pensees  Pascal  opposes  to  the  esprit 
de  geometric  (the  spirit  of  Roberval  and  Descartes) 
that  esprit  de  finesse  which  he  so  much  prefers,  he 
is  giving  the  palm  to  his  new  friends  and  praising 
that  in  which  they  exceed  the  old  ones — penetration, 
charm,  intuition,  feeling,  knowledge  of  life. 

The  sense  of  the  complexity  of  things,  the  dis- 
cernment of  all  the  simultaneous  elements  which  go 
to  make  up  the  world  and  life,  can  only  be  divined 
by  a  spontaneous  instinct,  a  mother-wit,  foreign  to 
the  reason  of  philosophers  and  savants,  but  pos- 
sessed sometimes  by  the  mere  children  of  Nature, 
and  sometimes  by  men  and  women  of  the  world. 
Tact,  and  taste  and  feeling,  the  sense  of  action,  the 
gift  of  judging  and  gauging  at  a  glance,  the  natural 
magic  of  the  heart,  are  qualities  which  Pascal  placed 
at  once  in  the  first  rank ;  though  his  reason  told  him 
that  the  greatest  minds  of  all  must  unite  the  qualities 


PASCAL  35 

of  his  new  friends  and  the  virtues  of  the  old  .  .  . 
must  feel  and  divine,  yet  reason  and  deduce;  must 
grasp  the  drift  of  things  by  intuition,  yet  have  the 
patience  to  speculate  in  abstract  thought.  Pascal 
with  his  passionate  nature  was  carried  away  by  his 
enthusiasm  for  the  noble  life,  for  the  elaboration  of 
an  elite.  He  left  off  thinking  exclusively  of  his 
salvafion,  he  ceased  pursuing  the  chimeras  of 
abstract  science,  and  began  to  acquiesce  in  the  life 
he  found  so  pleasant — gave  himself  thoroughly  up 
to  this  novel  existence,  stifling  that  inner  voice  which 
still  demanded  something  different. 

In  Poitou  or  in  Paris,  he  liked  being  in  the  circle 
of  his  friend  the  Duke,  both  because  its  exquisite 
refinement  was  agreeable  to  him,  and  because  of  that 
air  of  tender  flattery  which  unobtrusively  surrounded 
him,  soothing  his  natural  desire  for  supremacy.  His 
capacity  for  assimilating  the  thoughts  of  others,  and, 
as  it  were,  ripening  them  into  action  and  invention, 
found  a  fresh  nourishment;  he  felt  himself  growing, 
augmenting,  acquiring,  and  was  no  longer  haunted 
by  that  sense  of  sudden  incapacity,  that  feeling  of 
inability  to  advance  any  farther  along  a  given  path 
which  so  often  had  driven  him  from  one  thing  to 
another.  While  he  enjoyed  the  charm  of  his  new 
friends,  his  analytic  mind  sought  the  elements  of 
their  quality.  Now  and  then  he  would  draw  out  his 
tablets  and  make  a  note.  From  the  Pensees  of 
Pascal  we  might  reconstruct  the  code  of  the 
"honnete  homme"— the  commandments  of  the 
gentleman ! 

D  2 


86  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

They  would  run  somewhat  in  this  way  : — 

1.  Never  speak  of  self. 

(Le  moi  est  haissable.  Voulez  vous  qu'on  dise  du 
bien  de  vous?  N'en  dites  pas.) 

2.  Never  repeat  what  you  hear. 

(Si  tous  les  hommes  savaient  ce  qu'ils  disent  1'un 
de  1'autre,  il  n'y  aurait  pas  quatre  amis  dans  le 
monde.) 

3.  Be  ready  to  take  trouble  on  slight  occasions. 
(Le  respect  signifie  :  je  m'incommoderais  bien  si 

vous  en  aviez  besoin,  puisque  je  le  fais  deja  sans 
que  cela  vous  serve.) 

4.  Be  sparing  of  excuses  and  apologies,  which 
weary  at  best  and  often  inflame  the  offence. 

(Reverence  parler :  il  n'y  a  rien  de  mauvais  que 
leur  excuse.) 

5.  Claim  no  precedence  on  private   or  interior 
merits. 

(Qui  passera  de  nous  deux?  II  a  quatre  laquais 
et  je  n'en  ai  qu'un.  C'est  a  moi  de  ceder.) 

6.  Be  neither  Sir  Oracle  nor  a  buffoon. 

(Je  hais  le  bouffon  et  1'enfle !  ...  on  n'en  ferait 
pas  son  ami.) 

7.  Be  sincere. 

(II  faut  que  1'agreable  soit  lui  meme  pris  du  vrai.) 

8.  Be  generous. 

(Le  plaisir  des  grands  est  de  pouvoir  faire  des 
heureux.) 


PASCAL  37 

9.  Be  staunch,  and  have  the  reputation  for  it. 
(Un  vrai  ami  est  chose  avantageuse,  meme  pour 
les  plus  grands  seigneurs.) 

"And  if  you  do  all  this  and  no  more  than 
this"  (as  Pascal  remarked  to  a  young  man  of 
quality),  "you  will  certainly  lose  your  life 
eternal,  but  at  least  you  will  be  damned  like  a 
gentleman." 


VII 

Fifteen  years  after  the  death  of  Pascal,  the 
Chevalier  de  Mere — the  Chesterfield  of  his  age — 
published  an  anecdote  relating  a  little  tour  in  France 
which  once  he  took  with  the  Duke  of  Roannez,  some 
other  men  of  wit  and  fashion,  and  also  "un  grand 
mathematicien  qui  n'etoit  que  cela."  The  provincial 
manners  and  pedantic  tastes  of  this  great  scholar 
amused  the  pleasant  gentleman — the  stale  anec- 
dotes of  the  old  Court,  the  quotations  from  Guil- 
laume  du  Vair — for  stoicism  and  preciosity  were 
already  things  of  yesterday,  and  the  mark  of  fashion 
was  simplicity  and  a  natural  grace.  The  travellers 
were  too  well  bred  to  make  sport  of  their  great  man ; 
but  after  a  day  or  two  he  felt  himself  the  subtle 
difference  :  "  He  began  to  be  diffident  and  distrust- 
ful of  his  own  feelings,  and,  instead  of  talking,  only 
listened  or  asked  questions.  .  .  .  He  had  a  set  of 
tablets,  and  now  and  again  he  would  draw  them  out, 


38  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

and  make  a  note.  It  was  extraordinary — before  we 
reached  Poitiers,  he  said  nothing  that  was  not 
excellent !  " 

The  simplicity  and  delicacy  of  his  new  com- 
panions ravished  Pascal.  The  world  was  no  longer 
for  him,  as  for  the  Jansenists,  a  place  of  perdition, 
but  a  reunion  of  charming  spirits  :  a  happy  Chosen 
Few,  whose  conversation  reflected  the  subtlest 
gradations  and  finest  shades  of  sentiment :  "  Since 
our  travels,  he  thought  no  more  of  mathematics, 
which  had  been  his  chief  occupation;  but  that 
journey  caused  his  abjuration." 

Some  of  the  reflections  which  our  mathematician 
confided  to  his  tablets  have  probably  come  down  to 
us  in  that  enchanting  Discours  sur  les  Passions  de 
r Amour  which  Victor  Cousin  discovered  in  1843, 
and  of  which  M.  Emile  Faguet  offers  us  a  new 
edition,  enriched  with  a  penetrating  and  witty  com- 
mentary. There  is  nothing  to  prove  that  the  Dis- 
cours is  by  Pascal — one  of  the  manuscripts  bears 
the  simple  mention  "attribue  a  M.  Pascal " —and 
M.  Victor  Giraud  is  half  inclined  to  attribute  it  to 
Mere.  But  a  study  of  the  book  itself  inclines 
us  to  believe  in  the  authorship  of  Pascal — of  a 
Pascal  doubtless  influenced  by  the  personality  of 
Mere.  The  maxims  of  the  Discours  repeat  the 
themes  of  the  Pensees — almost  word  for  word  in 
many  instances;  they  have  not  yet  the  depth,  the 
moral  grandeur  of  the  Pensees,  nor  the  vivacity 
and  fire  of  the  Provinciales,  but  they  are  preludes 
to  these  themes.  And  the  mind  of  the  writer— 


PASCAL  39 

romantic,  delicate,  melancholy,  chaste — is,  to  the 
mind  of  Pascal,  as  the  sketch  is  to  the  portrait.  It 
is  the  mind  of  a  man  of  thirty  (whom  intellectual 
interests  and  fragile  health  have  so  far  guaranteed 
against  the  folly  of  passion),  suddenly  overcome, 
or  rather  caught  up,  ravished,  in  an  adoration  for 
Beatrice  revealed :  "  Les  grandes  ames  ne  sont  pas 
celles  qui  aiment  le  plus  souvent;  c'est  d'un  amour 
violent  que  je  parle :  il  faut  une  inondation  de 
passion  pour  les  ebranler  et  pour  les  remplir.  Mais 
quand  elles  commencent  a  aimer  elles  aiment 
beaucoup  mieux." 

Is  not  that  the  accent  of  Pascal  ? 

Love,  as  Pascal  conceives  it,  is  a  Platonic,  an 
ideal  attachment,  a  sentiment  compact  of  admira- 
tion and  respect.  The  influence  of  Corneille  and 
of  the  Predeux  had  not  yet  faded  from  his  heart; 
the  Discours  sur  les  Passions  de  V Amour  is  the  last 
faint  murmur  of  V amour  courtois.  We  do  not  know 
the  name  of  his  Beatrice — not,  I  imagine,  little 
Charlotte  de  Roannez,  so  much  younger  than  him- 
self, to  whom  he  played  the  part  of  guide,  philo- 
sopher and  friend.  Perhaps,  as  Rudel  loved  the 
Lady  of  Tripoli,  Pascal  may  have  dreamed  of 
Queen  Christina  in  the  north?  There  is  something 
unreal,  imaginary,  intellectual  in  his  discourse.  ,We 
think  of  Jean  de  Saintre,  to  whom  the  Dame  des 
Belles  Cousines  proposes  a  devotion  to  a  lady 
greater,  wiser,  grander,  older  than  himself,  who  can 
satisfy  her  lover's  ambition  and  enchant  his  dream- 
ing fancy  with  her  "  haulte  amitie." 


40  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 


VIII 

In  so  far  as  he  divined  them,  these  social  suc- 
cesses of  his  son  must  have  pleased  Etienne  Pascal, 
now  retired  from  office,  being  near  his  sixtieth  year, 
and  living  sometimes  in  Paris  and  sometimes  in 
Auvergne.  On  quitting  Rouen  in  1648,  he  had 
learned  with  consternation  his  daughter's  determina- 
tion to  take  the  veil.  Angry,  offended  at  once  in  his 
tenderness  and  his  authority,  he  had  cut  off  all 
intimacy  with  Port  Royal,  had  carried  off  son  and 
daughter  to  Clermont-Ferrand,  and  there  had 
thrown  himself  heart  and  soul  into  Pascal's  experi- 
ments. Nothing  of  all  this  had  influenced  Jacque- 
line. Dressed  like  an  old  woman,  in  her  plain  black 
gown  which  no  stay  sustained,  no  ribbon  adorned,  she 
spent  her  days  in  a  chamber  like  a  cell,  fireless  in 
winter,  lost  in  an  ecstasy  of  meditation.  But  the  son, 
at  least,  the  son  who  should  carry  on  so  honourable 
a  name,  was  reclaimed  from  such  excess  of  piety. 

On  the  23rd  of  September,  1651,  Etienne  Pascal 
died.  Pascal's  father,  despite  their  recent  differ- 
ences, had  been  father,  comrade,  friend  and  master 
all  in  one;  his  death  inspired  the  young  philosopher 
with  a  letter  to  Gilberte  Perier,  which  the  pious 
sentiments  of  Port  Royal  animate.  A  centon  of  the 
sentiments  of  St.  Cyran,  this  discourse  would  seem 
to  us  strained  and  artificial  but  for  one  beautiful 
passage — surely  the  most  beautiful  that  such  an 


PASCAL  41 

occasion  ever  has  inspired — pure,  simple,  penetrat- 
ing, wherein  speaks  the  very  soul  of  Pascal — 

"J'ai  appris  d'un  saint  homme,  dans  notre  afflic- 
tion, qu'une  des  plus  solides  et  plus  utiles  charites 
envers  les  morts  est  de  faire  les  choses  qu'ils  nous 
ordonneroient  s'ils  etoient  encore  au  monde,  et  de 
pratiquer  les  saints  avis  qu'ils  nous  ont  donnes,  et  de 
nous  mettre  pour  eux  en  1'etat  auquel  ils  nous  sou- 
haitent  a  present.  Par  cette  pratique  nous  les 
faisons  revivre  en  nous  en  quelque  sorte." 

Sometimes  the  dead  appear  to  radiate  from  the 
hearts  that  loved  them  most — not  for  ever,  but 
during  a  year  or  two,  the  period  of  deepest  bereave- 
ment. And  if  a  man  may  offer  himself  as  a  taber- 
nacle to  some  dear  spirit  dispossessed,  surely  Pascal 
sheltered  for  some  while  the  spiritual  remnant 
of  his  father.  He  was  himself  and  something 
added  to  himself  :  "  Blaise  Pascal,  Auvergnat,  fils 
d'Etienne  Pascal."  Not  that  he  gained  entirely  by 
this  interior  hospitality,  for  sometimes  the  mourner 
is  nobler  than  the  ghost.  The  excellent  Etienne 
Pascal,  so  sound  a  mathematician,  so  kind  a  friend 
and  father,  and  of  late  so  pious,  had  been  a  worldly 
and  ambitious  man.  And  now  the  son  of  Etienne 
Pascal  chose  the  things  that  Etienne  Pascal  had 
preferred,  remained  aloof-  from  the  austere  and 
methodist  society  of  Port  Royal,  continued  his 
father's  opposition  to  the  vows  of  Jacqueline,  went 
much  into  society,  clattered  over  the  pavements  of 
Paris  in  his  coach  and  six,  played  with  irascible 


42  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

amusement  at  cards  and  games  of  chance,  and  spent 
some  time  and  anxiety  in  hiding  the  mediocrity  of 
his  estate.  "  He  determined  to  follow  the  way  of 
the  world — to  take  office  and  to  marry."  But  the 
state  of  his  health  troubled  him  greatly.  It  seemed 
to  Pascal  that  his  sister's  first  duty  was  to  him. 
Their  two  little  fortunes  united  would  provide  a 
pleasant  house,  and  her  dear  society  was  indispens- 
able to  him  who  knew  no  other  nurse  or  secretary. 
On  the  last  day  of  December,  1651,  he  signed  a 
contract  with  his  sister  by  which  she  made  over 
her  capital  to  him,  he  securing  her  an  annuity  at  7-J 
per  cent.,  which  should  cease  at  her  death  or  on 
the  day  when  she  should  take  the  veil.  .  .  .  Jacque- 
line signed,  but  she  did  not  renounce  her  intention 
of  entering  Port  Royal,  only  she  kept  silence,  dread- 
ing the  explosion  of  her  brother's  grief  and  anger. 
A  few  days  later  the  Periers  arrived  in  Paris,  and 
Jacqueline  confided  to  Gilberte  that  her  flight  was 
prepared  for  the  morrow.  .  .  .  That  night,  Gilberte 
lay  wakeful,  thinking  of  the  blow  that  this  would  be 
to  her  brother,  and  pitying  Jacqueline,  summoned  by 
Heaven  away  from  home,  thus  violently  separated 
for  ever  from  all  she  loved.  At  seven,  after  dawn, 
hearing  no  one  astir  in  her  sister's  little  room, 
Madame  Perier  arose  and  quietly  opened  the  door — 

"  Je  crus  qu'elle  n'avoit  point  dormy  non  plus,  et 
j'eus  peur  qu'elle  ne  se  trouvat  mal,  de  sorte  que 
j 'allay  a  son  lit,  ou  je  la  trouvay  fort  endormie.  Le 
bruit  que  je  fis  1'ayant  reveillee  .  .  .  elle  me  dit 


PASCAL  43 

qu'elle  se  portoit  bien  et  qu'elle  avoit  bien  dormy. 
Ainsi  elle  se  leva,  s'habilla  et  s'en  alia,  faisant  cette 
action  comme  toutes  les  autres,  dans  une  tranquil- 
lite  et  une  egalite  d'esprit  inconcevables.  Nous  ne 
nous  dismes  point  adieu,  de  crainte  de  nous  atten- 
drir,  et  je  me  destournay  de  son  passage  lorsque  je 
la  vis  preste  a  sortir." 


IX 

And  Pascal  continued  to  live  the  worldly  life. 
But,  as  in  a  chill  and  wintry  dawn  a  ray  of  unlovely 
light  will  wake  us  from  a  happy  dream,  so  a  cold 
glare  seemed  to  have  fallen  across  the  pleasant 
places  he  frequented.  All  that  of  late  had  so 
entranced  him  appeared  unattractive,  artificial.  The 
ray  that  illumined  his  room  showed  all  the  shabbi- 
ness  and  hitherto  unnoticed  imperfections,  and  the 
light  itself  seemed  dismal,  unnatural,  unwished  for. 
Sometimes  the  disenchantment  would  cease,  and 
Pascal  would  continue  to  enjoy  the  charm  of  a  life 
congenial  to  his  taste.  And,  at  other  moments,  a 
breath  of  novel  freshness,  a  sense  of  release  and 
lightness,  would  stir  the  internal  sources  of  his  soul 
like  the  brushing  of  an  unseen  wing.  And  then 
again  he  would  feel  himself  caught  in  the  meshes  of 
a  vain,  empty,  frivolous,  valueless  existence.  In  the 
autumn  of  1653  the  crisis  grew  acuter.  He  experi- 
enced "  un  grand  mepris  du  monde  .  .  .  un  degout 
presque  insupportable  pour  les  personnes  qui  en 
sont." 


44  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

And  the  sense  of  charity  began  to  stir  in  Pascal. 
This  refined  society  that  he  frequented  was 
strangely  indifferent  to  the  miseries  of  millions 
whose  toil  and  privation  paid  the  ransom  of  the 
Happy  Few !  .  .  .  If  he  lost  or  won  at  play  (and 
he  loved  a  game); — if  his  heart  beat  quicker  for 
some  stage-heroine  of  Corneille's ; — if,  in  some  great 
salon,  the  give  and  take  of  wits  satisfied  his  sharp, 
fastidious  taste; — if,  by  his  own  fireside,  he  loved 
to  linger  over  the  delightful  selfishness  of  some 
passage  in  Montaigne;  beneath  these  worldly  joys 
the  same  dumb  craving  yearned  within, — across 
these  worldly  joys  there  fell,  from  time  to  time,  the 
same  unlovely  ray  :  "  Fillumination  du  cceur  !  " 

One  day,  or  so  at  least  a  nameless  witness  says 
(whose  story  is  preserved  in  the  library  of  the 
Oratorian  Fathers  at  Clermont),  one  holiday  when 
he  was  driving  with  his  friends  to  some  fair  or  fete 
at  Neuilly,  the  horses,  crossing  the  bridge,  took 
fright,  and  rushed  to  a  place  where  there  was  no 
parapet.  The  leaders  were  drowned;  the  persons 
in  the  coach  had  looked  Death  in  the  face.  .  .  .  And 
Pascal  could  not  forget  that  vision  of  an  abyss. 

But  more  than  all  there  weighed  with  him  the 
influence  of  Jacqueline.  The  brother  and  sister, 
some  eighteen  months  estranged,  had  found  each 
other  again,  and  Pascal  was  a  constant  visitor  at 
Port  Royal.  ...  A  year  before  (on  Trinity  Sunday, 
1652)  Jacqueline  had  been  enrolled  as  a  novice  of 
Port  Royal,  and  now  she  was  anxious  to  profess  her 


PASCAL  45 

ultimate  vows.  On  doing  so,  it  was  usual  for  a  nun 
to  pay  over  her  dowry  to  the  convent.  But  all 
Jacqueline's  fortune  was  in  her  brother's  hands,  and 
neither  Pascal  nor  his  sister  Gilberte  Perier  (excel- 
lent Jansenists  though  they  were)  wished  Jacque- 
line's money  to  fall  into  the  coffers  of  Port  Royal. 
Mere  Angelique  had  then  declared  her  willingness  to 
accept  her  new  daughter  tocherless;  but  Jacqueline 
wept. 

".Why  do  you  weep?"  said  Mere  Angelique. 
"  Or  why  not  weep  for  all  the  sins  of  all  the  sinners 
in  the  world?  There  are  worse  sins  against  God" 
—for  she  thought  (adds  the  commentator)  of  M. 
Pascal,  who,  having  been  touched  by  grace,  had  yet 
returned  to  the  amusements  of  the  world. 

And  still  Jacqueline  wept.  Then  M.  Singlin 
came  forward,  and  said  that,  unless  Jacqueline  gave 
her  brother  a  chance  of  fulfilling  his  duty,  she  would 
become  a  partaker  in  his  sin.  So  the  sad  sister  had 
written  to  the  brother  whom  she  loved;  and  when 
her  letter  brought  him  to  the  convent,  when  he  saw 
her  pale,  faintly  smiling,  in  her  monastic  dress,  all 
his  old  love  had  gushed  out  towards  her.  His  heart 
melted;  he  gave  up  her  fortune;  he  begged  her 
advice  and  counsel,  and  looked  upon  her  as  his 
spiritual  directress. 

And  yet  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  an  open 
breach  with  the  world,  nor  make  profession  of  his 
return  to  religion.  He  went  to  see  his  sister  fre- 
quently, but  with  some  secrecy  and  stealth.  The 


46  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

disconcerted  Jacqueline  wrote  to  Gilberte.:  "He  is 
strangely  anxious  that  no  one  should  know  he  comes 
here,  save  to  see  me.  He  says  he  could  easily  make 
the  excuse  of  having  business  in  the  country — he 
would  leave  his  carriage  and  servants  at  some 
village  near  Port  Royal  and  go  the  rest  of  the  way 
on  foot.  Then,  if  he  gave  a  false  name  at  the  door, 
no  one  save  M.  Singlin  need  know  who  he  really  is." 
For  Pascal  still  hesitated  between  Port  Royal 
and  the  ambitions  of  the  social,  scientific  world. 
But  the  cold  and  mystical  ray  grew  steadily  more 
intense,  till  it  became  a  spot  rilling  the  universe — 
the  eye  of  God — "  le  point  qui  remplit  tout " — the 
Infinite. 


X 

In  the  midst  of  these  preoccupations,  Pascal  was 
greatly  engrossed  by  mathematics.  That  very 
Chevalier  de  Mere  who  had  converted  him  from 
abstract  science  had  been  the  means  of  attracting 
him  to  the  calculation  of  probabilities.  The  society 
in  which  Pascal  now  chiefly  spent  his  time  was  fond 
of  play,  and  he  no  less  than  they,  for  the  gaming- 
table conciliates  most  of  his  propensities — the  pas- 
sion for  triumph  and  supremacy,  combativeness,  the 
pleasure  in  society,  the  sense  of  skill,  the  love  of 
gain  and  adventure ;  it  is  a  door  always  open  to  that 
"  vie  tumultueuse  "  which  attracted  the  half -crippled 
invalid  who  could  so  rarely  experience  its  excite- 


PASCAL  47 

ment.  For  several  years  Pascal  had  forsworn  the 
study  of  mathematics.  But  now,  in  1654,  Mere 
asked  him  several  suggestive  questions  as  to  the 
value  of  chance  :  suppose  that,  in  the  middle  of  a 
game,  two  antagonists  of  equal  merit  leave  the  table, 
the  one  having  gained  so  many  tricks,  the  other  so 
many,  how  should  the  stakes  be  divided?  Pascal 
immediately  imagined  a  quantity  of  variations  on 
this  problem,  was  soon  in  active  correspondence  on 
the  subject  with  Fermat  the  mathematician,  and 
gradually  found  himself  engaged  in  his  Treatise  on 
the  Arithmetical  Triangle. 

But  to  the  man  who  has  one  constant  obsession, 
all  subjects  tend  to  nourish  the  same  fixed  idea. 
There  is  one  ideal  combination  in  which  the  player 
may  gain  immensely,  if  he  gains,  and  lose,  if  he 
loses,  next  to  nothing.  Pascal,  ill  in  bed,  while 
writing  briskly  all  these  calculations  to  Fermat,  is 
revolving  a  parallel  problem  in  his  secret  soul — 

;<  You  must  wager  (he  says  to  himself)  for  or 
against  the  existence  of  a  God !  What  do  you  lose 
by  taking  the  risk?  It  is  true  you  must  give  up 
sundry  pestiferous  pleasures,  but  you  shall  have 
dearer  delights.  What  do  you  lose?  You  shall  be 
faithful,  honest,  humble,  grateful,  beneficent,  a 
friend  to  your  friends.  And  think  of  the  difference 

>etween  the  certitude  of  what  you  risk — so  little ! 
-and  the  incertitude  of  your  gain — an  infinity  of 
life  and  happiness  in  glory  eternal !  With  such  a 

lope,  even  in  this  world  you  would  be  the  gainer  !  "  1 

1  Pensee  233.     Brunschvicg,  II. 


48  THE  FRENCH   IDEAL 

It  happened  to  Pascal  as  it  often  happens  to  men 
on  the  threshold  of  the  spiritual  world  :  the  paradox, 
the  pleasantry,  the  curious  quip  whose  quaintness 
amuses,  is  proved  by  some  strange  chance  to  have  a 
deeper  meaning  than  we  thought,  and  suddenly 
appears  as  the  symbol  of  certitude.  This  idea  of 
the  wager  held  Pascal  captive.  And  when  he 
returned  to  his  geometry  and  his  arithmetic,  behold 
these  studies  (secretly  informed  by  his  subconscious 
self)  were  all  full  of  parables  and  spiritual  lessons ! 
M.  Fortunat  Strowski,  that  alert  and  penetrating 
critic,  has  discovered  in  the  Traites  du  triangle 
arithmetique  the  first  outline  of  one  of  the  most 
startling,  one  of  the  most  grand  and  moving  pages 
in  the  Pensees.  This  is  the  original  passage — 

"  Une  grandeur  continue  d'un  certain  ordre 
n'augmente  pas  si  on  lui  ajoute  des  quantites  d'ordre 
inferieur,  en  tel  nombre  que  Ton  voudra.  Ainsi  par 
exemple  une  somme  de  lignes  n'augmente  pas  plus 
par  1'addition  d'une  somme  de  points,  qu'une  somme 
de  surfaces  n'augmente  par  1'addition  d'une  somme 
de  lignes,  ou  une  somme  de  solides  par  1'addition 
d'une  somme  de  surfaces  .  .  .  en  sorte  qu'on  peut 
toujours  negliger  les  quantites  d'ordre  inferieur,  a 
cote  des  quantites  d* ordre  plus  eleve" 

Here  we  are  in  the  region  of  pure  mathematics, 
but  Nature  is  one.  Transport  this  truth,  proven  as 
only  mathematical  truth  can  be  proved,  into  the 
moral  world ;  what  does  it  reveal  ?  Here  also  there 
are  orders,  and  the  less  cannot  add  to  the  greater, 


PASCAL  49 

so  that,  in  these  orders  also,  it  is  wise  to  neglect  the 
less  for  the  greater.  .  .  . 

:t  Tous  les  corps,  les  firmaments,  les  etoiles,  la 
terre  et  ses  royaumes,  ne  valent  pas  le  moindre  des 
esprits  .  .  .  tous  les  corps  ensemble  et  tous  les 
esprits  ensemble  et  toutes  leurs  productions,  ne 
valent  pas  le  moindre  mouvement  de  charite.  Cela 
est  d'un  ordre  infmiment  plus  eleve. 

"  De  tous  les  corps  ensemble,  on  ne  saurait  en 
faire  reussir  une  petite  pensee  :  cela  est  impossible 
et  d'un  autre  ordre.  De  tous  les  corps  et  esprits,  on 
n'en  saurait  tirer  un  mouvement  de  vraie  charite,  cela 
est  impossible  et  d'un  autre  ordre,  surnaturel."  x 

But  these  orders  are  discontinuous ;  only  a  miracle 
can  make  a  genius  of  the  king  or  turn  Archimedes 
into  a  saint. 

If  not  the  heart,  at  least  the  mind  of  Pascal  was 
converted  to  religion.  The  mind  of  the  physicist  is 
singularly  sensitive  to  the  apprehension  of  super- 
natural realities.  He  is  aware  of  the  conventions 
and  uncertainties  of  science.  Men  of  the  world  and 
men  of  letters  imagine  that  the  knowledge  of 
physicists  is  based  on  certitudes,  which  we  ourselves 
no  doubt  cannot  exactly  gauge,  yet  which  may  be 
proved  and  tested  at  any  moment  by  the  experts  of 
the  craft.  But  a  Pascal  will  contend  that  religion, 
though  transcending  reason,  rests  on  as  sure  a 
foundation  as  any  of  the  sciences.  Which  of  them 
seems  to  you  the  most  exact ?  Geometry?  And  yet 

1  Penste  793.     Brunschvicg,  II. 
E 


50  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

it  starts  from  certain  elementary  assumptions  such 
as  number,  time,  motion,  space,  extensity.  These, 
just  as  much  as  religion,  we  apprehend  only  by  a 
movement  of  the  soul,  an  intuition.  "  On  trouvera 
peut-etre  etrange  que  la  geometric  ne  puisse  definir 
aucune  des  choses  qu'elle  a  pour  principal  objet — 
quand  elle  est  arrivee  aux  premieres  verites  connues, 
elle  s'arrete  la,  et  demande  qu'on  les  accorde." 
The  natural  philosopher,  on  the  other  hand,  is  aware 
of  mysterious  forces  beyond  our  ken,  invisibly, 
inaudibly,  imperceptibly  circulating  round  us,  flood- 
ing the  secret  veins  and  channels  of  the  universe, 
as  the  blood  flows  in  our  veins.  He  feels  that  a 
different  set  of  conditions  may  come  into  play  out- 
side the  boundaries  of  the  visible  universe.  We 
hardly  know  our  finite  world;  we  apprehend  there 
is  an  infinite,  and  its  nature  is  a  mystery — "Aussi 
on  peut  bien  connaitre  qu'il  y  a  un  Dieu  sans  savoir 
ce  qu'il  est." 2 

And,  at  last,  in  his  mind  all  the  Infinite  con- 
densed into  a  supernatural  Person,  Jesus  Christ, 
whom  he  adored. 

XI 

In  the  long  tract  of  a  life  the  hours  are  few  indeed 
when  a  man  awakes,  as  it  were,  to  that  quickened 
sense,  that  magnified  intelligence,  which  alone  gives 
a  meaning  to  existence,  filling  us  with  interior  joy. 

1  Traite  de  F Esprit  geometrique. 

2  Pens'ee  233,  loc.  cit. 


PASCAL  51 

Perhaps  no  mortal  has  known  many  of  these 
moments  of  spiritual  ecstasy  or  has  been  able  to 
enjoy  them  with  continuity.  A  few  such  instants, 
rising  above  the  dusty  plains  of  life  like  snowy, 
rosy  Alpine  peaks,  are  perhaps  all  that  we  shall 
keep  of  life  hereafter,  all  that  we  shall  recall,  if 
memory  and  consciousness  in  any  degree  survive 
our  mortal  state. 

Towards  the  end  of  1654  Pascal  was  more 
seriously  ill  than  he  had  been  for  some  years.  On 
the  night  of  St.  Clement's  Day,  the  23rd  of  Novem- 
ber, unable  to  sleep,  he  lay  reading  the  Gospel  of 
St.  John.  Suddenly  his  eyes  dazzled  :  a  flame  of 
fire  seemed  to  envelop  him.  In  the  incomparable 
phrase  of  the  Imitation,  he  was  all  on  fire  :  totus 
ignitus;  and  with  the  psalmist  he  cried  :  In  medita- 
tione  mea  exardescit  ignis  :  a  flame  of  mysterious, 
eternal,  beneficent  fire  that  inundated  flesh  and 
heart  and  soul  with  a  new  sense !  Such  a  moment 
of  marvellous  euphoria  could  never  be  forgotten  nor 
expressed  with  mortal  words,  only  with  tears,  or  in 
such  broken  fragmentary  speech,  like  sobs,  as  Pascal 
found,  to  record  the  mystic  moment,  in  that  Memorial 
which  thenceforth  he  ever  wore  in  secret,  sewn  into 
his  clothes,  like  a  talisman. 

"  Depuis  environ  dix  heures  et  demie  du  soir 
jusques  environ  minuit  et  demi. 

Feu. 

Dieu  dAbraham,  Dieu  d'Isaac,  Dieu  de  Jacob, 
non  des  philosophes  et  des  savants. 

£  2 


52  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Certitude  !  Certitude — sentiment — vue — joie — 
paix.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  Oubli  du  monde  et  de  tout  hormis  Dieu.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  Grandeur  de  1'Ame  humaine — 

*  Pere  juste,  le  monde  ne  t'a  point  connu,  mais  je 
t'ai  connu/ 

Joie,  joie,  joie,  pleurs  de  joie.  .  .  . 

Je  m'en  suis  separe  ! 

Que  je  n'en  sois  pas  separe  eternellement !  .  .  . 

Renonciation  totale  et  douce. 

Soumission  totale  a  Jesus  Christ  et  a  mon  direc- 
teur.  Eternellement  en  joie  pour  un  jour  d'exercice 
sur  la  terre. 

Non  obliviscar  sermones  tuos.    Amen" 

Pascal  at  last  had  accepted  the  wager.  On  the 
7th  of  January,  1655,  he  entered  the  precincts  of 
Port  Royal  des  Champs. 


XII 

Port  Royal,  the  nursery  of  Racine,  the  refuge  of 
Pascal,  the  friend  of  Bossuet,  has  left  on  all  its 
great  men  the  hall-mark  of  its  character — a  print 
of  conscience  and  a  stamp  of  truth— 

"Oubli  du  monde  et  de  tout  hormis  Dieu. 
.  .  .  Grandeur  de  1'Ame  humaine !  .  .  ." 

These  lines  of  Pascal  might  be  the  motto  of  Port 
Royal,  and  contain  the  secret  of  its  influence — its 
extraordinary  influence — over  the  souls  of  its  con- 
temporaries. And  we  might  well  wonder  at  this 


PASCAL  58 

exaltation  of  principle  in  theologians  devoted  to 
necessity  and  grace,  priests  of  predestination,  who 
hold  that  the  very  virtues  of  those  that  are  called, 
but  not  chosen,  are  merely  splendid  sins  !  Pauciores 
sunt  qui  salvantur  !  ,  .  .  Yet  (more  than  those  who 
preach  that  man  may  win  salvation  by  his  merits) 
they  insisted  on  the  laws  of  conscience,  on  scrupu- 
lous truth,  on  the  tense  and  constant  struggle  of  the 
human  will.  It  is  such  contradictions  as  these  that 
make  for  greatness !  The  solitaries  of  Port  Royal, 
immolating  the  present  and  the  certain  to  the  rare, 
bare  chance  of  a  reward  in  eternity,  dared  heroically 
their  noble  adventure  and  enjoyed  their  dangerous 
life. 

Laboremus  'pro  incerto !  The  rashness  and 
difficulty  of  their  undertaking  attracted  Pascal,  who 
in  nothing  loved  the  golden  mean.  The  very  ease 
and  felicity  of  the  worldly  life  satisfied  him  of  its 
mediocrity.  If  a  man  should  become  the  umpire  of 
elegance  and  the  arbiter  of  honour  for  all  his  age, 
though  he  spake  with  the  tongue  of  angels  and 
charmed  never  so  wisely,  these  gifts  and  graces 
would  not  make  him  great  or  grand.  And  the  secret 
instinct  of  Pascal  was  all  for  greatness,  all  for 
grandeur.  He  had,  we  know,  the  libido  dominandi, 
the  libido  excellendi;  so  soon  as  it  became  clear  to 
him  that  the  form  of  life  which  he  had  embraced 
was  not  the  first  of  all,  the  best  and  greatest,  he 
began  to  crave  a  nobler,  if  a  thornier,  way.1 

1  See  Petitot,  op  cit,  55. 


54  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

And  yet  he  dreaded  the  privations  of  Port  Royal ; 
he  feared  for  his  health;  the  separation  from  his 
friend,  de  Roannez,  seemed  like  the  wrench  of  body 
and  soul.  For  some  six  months  he  had  lingered  on 
the  brink.  And  then,  at  the  New  Year,  he  took  the 
plunge — and  enjoyed  it !  Jacqueline  Pascal  wrote 
to  Madame  Perier — 

"  II  a  obtenu  une  chambre  ou  cellule  parmi  les 
solitaires  de  Port  Royal  d'ou  il  m'a  ecrit  avec  une 
extreme  joie  de  se  voir  loge  et  traite  en  prince— 
mais  en  prince  au  jugement  de  Saint  Bernard,  dans 
un  lieu  solitaire  ou  Ton  fait  profession  de  pratiquer 
la  pauvrete  en  tout  ou  la  discretion  le  peut  per- 
mettre.  II  assiste  a  tout  1'office,  depuis  primes  jus- 
qu'a  complies,  sans  qu'il  sente  la  moindre  incom- 
modite  de  se  lever  a  cinq  heures  du  matin ;  et  comme 
si  Dieu  voulait  qu'il  joignit  le  jeune  a  la  veille  pour 
braver  toutes  les  regies  de  la  medecine,  qui  lui  ont 
tant  defendu  1'un  et  1'autre — le  souper  commence  a 
lui  faire  mal  a  I'estomac,  de  sorte  que  je  pense  qu'il 
le  quittera." 

We  must  imagine  Pascal  "  gai  dans  la  solitude  " 
—the  words  are  Jacqueline's—  "  un  penitent  rejoui," 
as  she  says  again,  yet  trying  his  strength  against  the 
exercises  of  the  ascetic  life,  meditating  the  Scrip- 
tures by  day  and  by  night,  assisting  at  every  service 
in  the  chapel,  pushing  the  spirit  of  mortification  to 
its  last  extreme.  A  year  after  his  conversion,  in 
December  1655,  his  sister  writes  to  him,  in  one  of 
those  spirited  letters  which  it  would  be  a  sin  to 
translate — 


PASCAL  55 

"  On  m'a  fort  congratulee  pour  la  grande  f erveur 
qui  vous  eleve  si  fort  au  dessus  de  toutes  les 
manieres  communes,  que  vous  mettez  les  balais  au 
rang  des  meubles  superflus !  .  .  ."  And  she  begs 
him,  out  of  penance,  to  be  for  some  months  "  aussi 
propre  que  vous  etes  sale,"  and  as  vigilant  in  direct- 
ing his  servant  as  he  is  negligent  of  all  that  regards 
himself  ("Who  sweeps  a  room  as  to  God's  praise, 
makes  that  and  the  action  fine  !  ")  "  Et  apres  cela 
il  vous  sera  glorieux,  et  edifiant  aux  autres,  de  vous 
voir  dans  1'ordure — s'il  est  vrai  toutefois  qu'il  soit 
le  plus  glorieux,  dont  je  doute  beaucoup — parce  que 
Saint  Bernard  n'etait  pas  de  ce  sentiment." 

The  charming  nun  makes  sport  of  her  great 
brother's  austerities.  There  was  perhaps  (before 
the  Provinciates)  at  Port  Royal  a  (disposition  not  to 
take  Pascal  quite  seriously.  He  had  been  converted 
once  before,  and  had  slid  back  into  a  worse  state 
than  the  first;  the  Jansenists  could  not  forget  this 
relapse.  Had  not  Mere  Angelique  said  of  him, 
when  Jacqueline  pronounced  her  vows  against  his 
will :  "  Qu'il  n'y  avait  pas  lieu  d'attendre  un  miracle 
de  grace  en  une  personne  comme  lui"?  Perhaps 
the  very  excess  of  his  austerities  appeared  to  them 
suspicious?  Nicole  used  to  smile  in  after  days,  and 
tell  how  a  labourer,  working  on  the  land  of  the 
convent,  had  exclaimed  one  day :  "  Whenever  I  see 
M.  Pascal,  he  looks  as  if  he  were  just  going  to 
swear !  "  Port  Royal  did  not  ask  such  an  extreme. 
It  asked  detachment,  but  a  serene  detachment;  it 
bade  its  penitents  be  poor — use  only  the  most  neces- 


56  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

sary  furniture  in  their  chambers;  wear  the  quietest 
and  plainest  of  garb;  live  sparely;  wait  each  on 
himself  so  far  as  possible;  work  each  with  his  own 
hands  at  some  humble  manual  labour,  were  it  but 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  morning  and  evening.  Port 
Royal  asked  a  Quakerish,  a  Tolstoi-ish,  sobriety— 
but  laid  no  stress  on  cobwebs,  dust  or  dirt.  .  .  . 

To  Pascal,  as  to  all  persons  of  a  passionate  tem- 
perament, each  crisis  in  his  inner  life  appeared  as 
something  absolutely  new — a  vita  nova,  a  revival 
and  renewal.  He  rose  from  the  ashes  of  his  past 
like  the  phoenix,  and  shook  them  from  him,  even 
while  Port  Royal  remembered  his  earlier  conver- 
sion, and  how  he  had  been  attracted  and  led  away 
by  science  and  the  world,  living  "dans  les  amuse- 
ments." And  now  the  same  crisis,  the  same  struggle, 
again  agitated  his  unstable  soul — a  soul  that  aspired 
ever  to  Unity,  yet  never  remained  at  one  with  itself ; 
a  soul  whose  different  elements  were  constantly 
dissociated  in  a  perpetual  antagonism. 

For  a  moment,  that  Unity  was  realised,  and 
Pascal  dwelt  happy  in  his  cell,  rising  before  the 
dawn  at  four  in  the  morning,  strengthening  his  will 
by  solitude  and  fasting,  stronger  than  he  had 
been  for  months.  He  was  full  of  a  tranquil  inner 
joy,  a  sense  of  release  and  lightness  that  once  he  had 
experienced  before,  which  comes  from  the  sudden 
simplifying  of  life.  In  this  plain  bare  place,  where 
the  garden  showed  no  flowers,  even  in  summer, 
where  no  organ  made  music  in  the  convent  chapel, 


PASCAL  57 

where  beauty,  grace,  art  were  things  forsworn,  he 
was  borne  up  by  a  delicious  sense  of  elasticity  and 
detachment.  He  had  entered  the  mystical  kingdom 
of  Charity. 

If  Mere  Angelique  and  M.  Singlin  looked  on 
their  new  convert  with  mingled  affection  and  mis- 
trust, the  younger  men  of  Port  Royal  were  proud  of 
the  adhesion  of  a  great  mathematician,  a  brilliant 
man  of  the  world,  whose  mastery  of  science  and 
knowledge  of  life  were  universally  admitted.  Cer- 
tainly all  of  them  knew  something  of  the  arith- 
metical machine.  Among  these  younger  men — 
young  only  in  the  comparative  degree — Pascal  was 
irresistibly  attracted  to  Antoine  Arnauld,  the  great 
Arnauld,  already  over  forty  years  of  age,  a  man  full 
of  vigour,  solid  judgment,  cheerful  spirits  and  heroic 
virtue.  He  was  the  last  born  of  that  family  of 
Arnauld  of  whom  eight  brothers  and  sisters  were 
inmates  of  Port  Royal,  twenty  years  younger  than 
his  sister,  Mere  Angelique,  who  when  she  thought  of 
his  fortitude  and  his  learning  called  him  "  Mon 
Pere,"  and  again,  remembering  his  trials,  would  say, 
"  Mon  pauvre  petit  frere !  "  He  was  the  militant 
theologian  of  the  order,  at  once  great  and  gay, 
soldier-like  and  simple — a  man  of  might  and  mirth 
who  loved  to  smite  a  Jesuit  hip  and  thigh,  and  then 
would  turn  aside  to  gambol  with  a  little  child. 

A  certain  Marquis  de  Louville  in  his  youth  had 
heard  the  Jansenists  of  this  great  generation  ful- 
minate against  their  enemies :  "  Us  parlaient 


58  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

toujours  des  Jesuites  et  n'en  parlaient  jamais  sans 
que  la  gorge  leur  enflat."  We  see  the  harsh  and 
angry  Jansenists,  the  veins  of  their  throat  swollen 
with  passion  !  Arnauld  alone  among  them  all  would 
suddenly  break  off  and  join  the  little  fellow  in  his 
games.1  Pascal  must  have  thought  of  some  such 
trait  when  he  wrote  in  his  Pcnsees — 

"  On  ne  s'imagine  Platon  et  Aristote  qu'  avec  de 
grandes  robes  de  pedants.  C'etaient  pourtant  des 
gens  honnetes"  (or,  as  we  should  say,  men  of  the 
world)  "  et  comme  les  autres,  riant  avec  leurs  amis." 2 

This  amiable  and  simple  man  lived  the  life  of  a 
hunted  fox  :  "  M.  Arnauld  vit  sous  terre  comme  une 
taupe,"  wrote  Madame  de  Sevigne.  After  some 
violent  outburst,  when  he  had  lived  down  his  last 
imprudence  (which  would  always  be  the  affair  of 
some  years),  he  would  steal  back  to  Port  Royal  des 
Champs  and  bide  there  very  quietly,  till  some  new 
outrage  on  the  faith  roused  him  to  fresh  zeal — and 
then  he  must  again  set  out  into  exile,  in  secrecy  and 
in  silence. 

While  Pascal  was  enjoying  the  society  of  Arnauld 
at  Port  Royal,  a  certain  priest  at  Saint  Sulpice 
refused  the  Sacrament  to  the  Duke  of  Liancourt,  on 
the  ground  that  his  opinions,  as  a  known  Jansenist, 
were  schismatic  and  heretical.  Arnauld  took  fire. 
Two  angry  letters  soon  set  the  Jesuits  at  his  heels. 

1  Sainte-Beuve,  Port  Royal,  iii.  156. 

2  Pensee  331. 


PASCAL  59 

The  Sorbonne  arraigned  him  before  a  tribunal  of 
doctors  which  met  and  deliberated  during  the  whole 
of  December  1655  and  January  1656.  His  censure 
and  degradation  appeared  certain.  The  Jansenists 
appealed  to  the  Parliament  and  were  immediately 
nonsuited.  :<  The  Pope,  the  Sorbonne,  the  Council, 
the  Parliament,  all  are  against  them — they  are  lost. 
They  have  no  Court  of  Appeal !  "  wrote  Fouquet  to 
Mazarin. 

And  Pascal  wrote  in  his  Pensees  :  "  Ad  tuum 
tribunal,  Jesu,  appello  !  " 

At  Port  Royal,  while  the  suit  was  pending,  the 
solitaries  communed  together  and  decided  that  it 
would  be  well  to  enlighten  the  opinion  of  the  public. 
Because  the  debates  were  in  Latin,  the  issues  were 
obscured;  and  the  Jansenists  passed  with  the  crowd 
for  no  better  than  Protestants.  It  would  be  wise  to 
scatter  broadcast  some  simple  statement  of  the  case. 
Arnauld  consented  to  compose  such  a  pamphlet;  but 
when  he  read  it  to  the  gentlemen  of  Port  Royal  their 
reserve  was  an  evident  opinion.  Arnauld  could  only 
do  "  the  big  bow-wow  !  "  He  smiled,  and,  turning 
to  Pascal,  he  said  :.  "  You  are  young,  you  should  try 
your  hand  at  it." 

And  Pascal  wrote  the  first  Provinciate.  Here  was 
Ariel  among  the  prophets !  The  brilliant  nimble 
beauty  of  his  style,  its  dazzling  genius,  were  a  new 
gift  to  him.  They  came  in  the  hour  when  he  had 
renounced  the  world  and  its  works.  But  we  live  on 
our  yesterdays.  Every  line  of  the  Petites  Lettres 


60  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

was  quick  with  that  "  delicieux  et  criminel  usage  du 
monde  "  which  the  hermit  of  Port  Royal  had  for 
ever  forsworn.  They  were  prompted  by  the  man  he 
had  been — the  reader  of  Montaigne,  the  friend  of 
Mere.  Our  unconscious  ego  (all  that  is  genius  in  us, 
and  impulse)  decides  and  acts  according  to  what  we 
used  to  be,  untouched  as  yet  by  our  immediate  self. 
Prompt,  ardent,  Pascal  affronts  a  subject  of  which 
he  is  in  fact  prodigiously  ignorant — theology.  He 
comes  to  these  problems  with  the  fresh  mind  and 
lucid  attentiveness  of  the  inventor — studying  the 
vexed  questions  of  grace,  predestination  and  free- 
will as  he  studied  the  vacuum  in  his  test  tubes  or  the 
equilibrium  of  liquids.  Here,  too,  he  will  begin  by 
verifying  his  facts  by  the  light  of  experience  and 
common  sense,  always  seeking  the  simplest  explana- 
tion. Here,  too,  he  will  start  from  an  hypothesis 
whose  only  proof  can  lie  in  the  exactness  of  its 
previsions  and  the  constant  invariability  of  its 
consequences.  Success  is  the  test  of  science.  With 
Pascal,  morality  became  the  criterium  of  religion. 
And  always  he  works  on  the  same  method- 
First  of  all  an  inkling,  an  intuition,  a  movement 
that  his  imagination  prompts ;  and  he  follows  it  up  in 
a  rush,  with  haste,  fury,  precipitation,  to  its  extreme 
consequence,  careless  of  incidental  inaccuracies. 
But  afterwards  he  goes  over  the  same  ground,  pain- 
fully, laboriously,  exactly ; — verifying  and  measuring, 
until  suddenly  he  flags,  with  a  brusque  droop  of  the 
wing,  and  quits  his  subject  unfinished.  The  work 


PASCAL  61 

of  Pascal  is  a  collection  of  marvellous  fragments. 
Creative  genius  admits  this  imperfection  in  its 
treasure-trove. 

As  for  the  material,  here  as  there,  he  will  take  it 
in  other  men's  inventions,  or  in  other  men's  books 
—wherever  he  discovers  the  elements  that  he  alone 
combines.  He  will  take  the  form  of  his  dialogues 
from  the  Constance  of  Du  Vair.  As  for  the  matter, 
that  will  be  supplied  by — not  Torricelli,  this  time, 
not  Montaigne — but  the  great  Arnauld.  .When  M. 
Brunschvicg's  edition  of  Pascal  shall  be  terminated 
we  shall  know — as  already,  thanks  to  M.  Strowski, 
we  foresee — to  what  an  unsupposed  extent  Pascal 
worked  on  Arnauld's  notes:  "toutes  les  Provin- 
ciales  (a  part  ce  qui  est  pris  a  Escobar)  sont  faites 
avec  des  notes  prises  sur  les  ecrits  inedits  ou 
imprimes  d' Arnauld.  .  .  .  Pascal  1'a  compile,  copie, 
imite  mille  fois.  .  .  .  Le  style,  la  disposition,  le 
sentiment,  sont  de  Pascal;  le  fond  est  d'Arnauld." 

The  genius  of  Pascal  could  not  save  his  friend. 
On  January  31,  1656,  the  great  Arnauld  was  con- 
demned. The  day  the  censure  was  pronounced 
upon  him,  he  was  walking  in  a  gallery  at  Port  Royal 
when  the  words  of  St.  Augustine  rose  into  his  mind, 
and  he  murmured,  "  Since  they  persecute,  O  Lord, 
Thy  Truth  in  me,  help  me  to  fight  for  Thy  Truth 
until  the  death  !  "  He  took  this  inner  movement  as 
an  admonition  and  went  immediately  into  hiding, 
and  did  well,  for  otherwise  he  scarcely  had  avoided 
the  Bastille.  In  hiding  Antoine  Arnauld  was  to 


62  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

remain  for  years,  yet  in  constant  communication 
with  Port  Royal  and  with  Pascal.  In  March  1656 
the  solitaries  of  Port  Royal  were  dispersed.  Pascal 
came  to  Paris — first  of  all  to  a  friend's  house,  near 
the  Luxembourg,  opposite  the  Porte  St.  Michel. 
But  soon,  for  greater  surety,  he  moved  incognito  to 
a  little  inn  opposite  the  College  de  France,  in  the 
Rue  des  Poirees,  at  the  sign  of  King  David.  Here 
he  took  up  his  abode  under  the  name  of  M.  de  Mons, 
and  continued  with  all  possible  speed  and  secrecy 
to  write  the  second,  third  and  fourth  of  the  Lettres 
Provinciales. 

Let  us  note  here  Pascal's  growing  passion  for 
disguises.  The  first  of  the  Petites  Lettres  had 
appeared  anonymously,  but  soon  they  were  signed 
by  Louis  de  Montalte.  "  Montalte  "  (which  Sainte- 
Beuve  supposes  a  variation  on  "  Montaigne  ")  is,  of 
course,  the  Puy  de  Dome,  that  high  mountain  of  his 
birthplace  which  had  served  Pascal  for  his  great 
experiment — that  Olympus  of  the  Auvergnat  which 
the  little  world  of  Port  Royal  (filled  with  Auvergn- 
ats)  would  recognise  at  once,  while  the  name  meant 
nothing  to  the  uninformed  ear.  "M.  de  Mons"  is 
the  same  as  "  M.  de  Montalte,"  and,  later  on,  the 
names  of  "Amos  Dettonville  "  and  "Salomon  de 
Tultie  "  are  anagrams  of  "  Louis  de  Montalte,"  and 
homages  in  mufti  to  his  native  place. 

Pascal,  in  retreat,  spent  several  busy  months  at 
the  sign  of  King  David.  Meanwhile,  his  brother- 
in-law,  Florin  Perier,  arriving  in  Paris,  took  up  his 


PASCAL  63 

quarters  in  the  same  hostelry,  and  there  received  the 
visit  of  a  distant  cousin,  a  Jesuit,  the  Pere  de  Fretat, 
who  warned  him  that,  in  the  Society,  the  authorship 
of  the  Provinciates  was  attributed  to  M.  Pascal. 
"M.  Perier  repondit  comme  il  put."  Behind  the 
half-drawn  curtains,  on  the  bed,  a  score  of  numbers 
of  the  Provinciates  were  laid  out  to  dry !  As  soon 
as  the  Jesuit  had  left  the  room,  M.  Perier  hastened 
to  tell  the  good  story  to  Pascal,  who  lodged  in  the 
chamber  immediately  overhead;  and  the  two  Jan- 
senists,  behind  their  bolted  doors,  had  a  hearty 
laugh. 

The  success  of  the  Lettres  Provinciates  was 
instantaneous  and  immense.  The  wit,  the  fire,  the 
pungent  comic  sense  (forestalling  Moliere)  of  the 
first  letters ;  the  moral  ardour,  the  grand  indignation 
of  the  later  ones,  took  Paris  by  surprise.  The 
Jesuits  never  wholly  recovered  from  this  double 
assault;  it  was  as  though  an  elf  and  an  angel  had 
joined  arms  against  them,  and  Pascal  was  both  the 
elf  and  the  angel !  A  Jesuit  once  compared  the 
Provincial  Letters  to  the  torments  that  savages 
inflict  on  evangelising  martyrs,  when,  having 
smeared  their  helpless  nakedness  with  honey,  they 
expose  them  to  the  stings  of  wasps  and  hornets ! 

The  Provinciates,  in  fact,  are  full  of  stings  and 
honey.  And  Pascal  forgot  too  consistently  that 
these  Jesuits,  whom  he  hated  as  debasers  of  the 
moral  currency,  were  also,  courageously,  evangelis- 
ing martyrs.  He  forgot  the  missionaries  of  China 


64  THE  FRENCH   IDEAL 

and  Paraguay.  He  misquoted,  he  dramatised — he 
caricatured.  But  Pascal  was  not  yet  a  saint.  And 
he  was  always  a  genius,  a  polemist,  and  a  Celt. 

Every  one  read  the  Letters.  "  We  have  only  ten 
thousand  printed,  and  we  shall  need  many  more," 
wrote  one  of  the  gentlemen  of  Port  Royal  after  the 
seventeenth.  Yet,  when  the  first  enthusiasm  and 
triumph  had  subsided,  a  lassitude,  a  melancholy, 
overcast  the  mind  of  Pascal.  Gradually  the  spirit 
of  Port  Royal  was  penetrating  the  soul  of  the 
secretary  of  Port  Royal.  Mere  Angelique  had  not 
murmured  in  vain  her  customary  counsels  :  "  douceur 
.  .  .  retenue  .  .  .  sagesse."  Had  she  not  written 
in  the  full  joy  of  combat—  "le  silence  en  ce  temps 
serait  encore  plus  beau"?  Perhaps,  too,  the  mind 
of  Pascal,  which  was  after  all  a  scientific  mind, 
reproached  him  with  advancing  too  audaciously 
opinions  which  he  had  gathered  at  second-hand,  and 
as  to  which  he  had  no  personal  experience  and  know- 
ledge. Perhaps  the  soul  of  Pascal — henceforth 
upon  its  guard  against  the  libido  excellendi — saw 
in  the  artist's  triumph  a  snare,  and  forestalled 
already  the  future  blame  of  Racine :  "  Et  vous 
semble-t-il  que  les  Lettres  Provinciates  soient  autre 
chose  que  des  comedies?  "  Or  was  he  simply  weary 
of  success?  After  the  eighteenth  Provinciate  the 
pen  dropped  from  his  hand.  The  nineteenth,  the 
twentieth,  commenced,  announced,  were  never 
written. 


PASCAL  65 


XIII 

Pascal's  aim,  in  writing  the  Provinciates,  had  been 
to  awaken  the  conscience  of  France,  drugged  by  the 
sophisms  of  Jesuit  morality,  and  also  to  instruct  the 
public  in  the  nature  of  positive  truth — to  show  the 
world  "  quelle  est  la  nature  des  choses  de  fait  et  par 
quel  principe  on  en  doit  juger."  1  Though  Pope 
and  Council  should  assert  the  heresy  of  Jansenism 
—basing  it  on  five  propositions  supposed  to  exist  in 
the  Augustinus — yet,  if  in  fact  these  propositions  do 
not  exist  in  the  Augustinus,  then  Pope  and  Coun- 
cil have  anathematised  in  vain.  Authority  is  as 
nothing  in  the  face  of  fact;  and  Pascal  says  to  the 
Jesuits — 

"  Ce  f  ut  en  vain  que  vous  obtintes  contre  Galilee 
un  decret  de  Rome,  qui  condamnait  son  opinion 
touchant  le  mouvement  de  la  terre.  Ce  ne  sera  pas 
cela  qui  prouvera  qu'elle  demeure  en  repos;  et,  si 
Ton  avait  des  observations  constantes  qui  prouvas- 
sent  que  c'est  elle  qui  tourne,  tous  les  hommes 
ensemble  ne  1'empecheraient  pas  de  tourner,  et  ne 
s'empecheraient  pas  de  tourner  aussi  avec  elle." 

But  there  are  facts  which  surpass  the  known  order 
of  Nature;  the  positive  philosophy  of  Pascal  in 
nowise  excluded  mysticism;  he  was  continually 
haunted  by  the  sense  of  a  constant,  if  imperfect, 

1  Lettre  XVIII.  *  Ibid. 


6<5  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

communication  with  a  sphere  just  beyond  the  grasp 
of  our  intelligence,  just  outside  the  testimony  of  our 
senses.  '  There  is,"  said  Pascal,  in  one  of  his  letters, 
"a  Voice  that  sets  at  naught  the  laws  of  Nature." 
To  say  that  things  cannot  happen  which  transcend 
our  present  conception  of  the  order  of  the  universe 
appeared  to  him  a  piece  of  Jesuitry,  a  sophism,  a 
paring  and  clipping  of  divine  truth  to  make  it  fit 
in  a  frame  of  our  invention,  formed  in  the  poor 
capacity  of  mortal  minds. 

There  is  an  invisible  continuity  uniting  all  the 
figures  of  this  world  beyond  our  finite  measures  of 
space  and  time.  And,  sometimes,  out  of  this  dim 
Infinite,  a  message  comes  to  us  :  a  message  sent— 
not  by  a  mere  World-soul — not  by  the  "  Dieu  des 
philosophes  et  des  savants"— but  by  a  spirit  of 
Love,  a  God  of  Consolation  and  of  Conduct. 

In  the  spring  of  1656  such  a  message,  such  a  fact, 
dropped  into  the  consciousness  of  Pascal,  sending 
through  all  his  soul  wider  echoes  and  ever  wider 
eddies  of  feeling  and  of  prayer.  Even  the  night  of 
his  conversion  had  encompassed  him  with  no  more 
marvellous  sense  of  the  presence  and  reality  of  the 
Godhead  than  the  so-called  miracle  of  the  Holy 
Thorn. 

"  S'il  y  a  des  miracles,  il  y  a  done  quelque  chose 
au-dessus  cle  ce  que  nous  appelons  la  Nature  !  " 

On  the  27th  of  March  a  little  girl  at  school  in  the 
Convent  of  Port  Royal  des  Champs,  Pascal's  young 


PASCAL  67 

niece  M argot,  the  daughter  of  Florin  and  Gilberte 
Perier,  was  suddenly  cured  of  a  long-standing  ulcer 
of  the  lachrymal  gland,  by  the  contact  of  a  relic  of 
the  Crown  of  Thorns.  The  miracles  of  Lourdes 
have  familiarised  us  with  such  cases  (which  modern 
Faith,  and  modern  Thought,  and  modern  Science 
explain  with  various  dexterity).  To  Pascal,  as  to  all 
his  world,  there  was  but  one  explanation  :  in  Pascal's 
eyes  the  Thorns  of  Jesus  worked  a  miracle  in  the 
Chapel  of  Port  Royal  as  a  sign,  in  order  to  distin- 
guish between  the  false  and  the  true,  between  the 
calumniated  and  the  calumniators.  The  Court,  the 
Pope,  the  Jesuits,  the  Parliament  had  persecuted 
the  nuns  of  Port  Royal.  The  "  Voice  that  sets  at 
naught  the  laws  of  Nature  "  spoke  and  proclaimed 
their  innocence :  "  Miracles  discern  doctrine,  and 
doctrine  discerns  miracles  !  "  The  Catholic  Church 
was  at  that  moment  in  a  mist  of  perplexity.  Port 
Royal  drew  the  more  ardent  spirits  by  the  purity  of 
its  life,  the  austerity  of  its  teaching,  the  gifts  and 
grandeur  of  its  apostles;  but  Rome  had  condemned 
the  essential  tenets  of  Port  Royal.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Jesuits  were  a  numerous  and  eloquent 
body  of  religious  men;  they  agreed  with  the  Univer- 
sity, they  were  approved  at  Rome.  Although  their 
road  appeared  the  primrose  path  itself  compared  to 
the  strait  gate  and  the  narrow  way  of  the  Jansenists, 
yet  it  was  they,  not  these,  whom  sacred  doctors  and 
profane  alike  recommended.  And  at  this  point  God 
spoke ! 

F  2 


68  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

"  Lorsqu'il  y  aura  contestation  dans  la  meme 
Eglise,  le  miracle  decidera.  .  .  / 

"Lequel  est  le  plus  clair? 

"  Cette  maison  n'est  pas  de  Dieu ;  car  on  n'y  croit 
pas  que  les  cinq  propositions  soient  dans  Jansenius; 

Ou  bien, 

"Cette  maison  est  de  Dieu;  car  II  y  fait 
d'etranges  miracles."  2 

Think  as  we  will  of  the  reasoning  of  Pascal,  he 
understood  his  age.  Rome  and  the  University  gave 
pause;  the  heart  of  the  Queen  was  changed;  the 
persecution  for  a  moment  ceased;  the  so-called 
miracle  of  the  Holy  Thorn  did  more  for  Port  Royal 
than  all  the  genius  of  Pascal. 

The  mind  of  Pascal  appears  to  have  progressed 
by  crooked  and  curved  lines  from  the  great  experi- 
ment of  the  Puy  de  Dome  to  the  miracle  of  the  Holy 
Thorn.  Sainte-Beuve  admits  himself  nonplussed, 
disconcerted  by  this  attitude  of  his  hero.  And  yet, 
in  either  case  Pascal's  method  and  mental  position 
were  the  same !  Here  as  there  he  was  all  for  fact, 
however  new,  unexplained  and  startling,  in  place  of 
the  comfortable  humdrum  theories  of  the  schools  : 
"  Nature  abhors  a  vacuum,"  '  The  supernatural  does 
not  happen."  In  the  eyes  of  Pascal,  the  miracle  of 
the  Holy  Thorn  was  a  fact !  He  knew  Margot 
Perier;  she  was  his  own  niece  and  his  god-daughter; 
for  years  he  had  grieved  over  the  ulcer  of  her  eye. 

1  Ptnsee  832.  2  Pensee  834. 


PASCAL  69 

The  contact  of  the  Holy  Thorn  apparently  had 
cured  it.  Let  us  not  limit  Truth  (he  would  say)  by 
our  preconceived  ideas.  We  affect  to  found  our 
conduct  and  philosophy  on  Truth;  yet,  even  in  the 
things  of  this  world,  our  reason  is  incapable  of 
grasping  its  unfamiliarity.  Reason  may  command 
the  abstract  truth  of  mathematics,  which  is  sterile  in 
its  depth  and  useless  in  its  purity ;  but,  in  proportion 
as  we  advance  towards  the  contact  of  the  Real,  the 
importance  of  our  reason  diminishes.  In  a  science 
such  as  physics — in  a  crucial  test  like  that  of  the 
vacuum — reason  must  submit  to  experiment.  In  the 
practical  conduct  of  life,  instinct  and  feeling  are 
superior  to  reason.  But  the  things  of  Faith  owe 
nothing  at  all  to  the  mechanism  of  our  reason. 
They  are  without,  above ;  they  have  another  origin, 
are  of  a  different  order.  Religion,  like  science,  is 
an  overthrow,  an  upsetting  of  all  our  preconceived 
ideas,  a  perpetual  astonishment,  a  mockery  of 
reason. 


XIV 

In  1657  tne  mysterious  Louis  de  Montalte  ceased 
to  produce  his  Letters.  And  Pascal,  in  one  of  his 
sudden  and  extreme  resolutions,  announced  his 
intention  of  writing  an  Apology  for  Christianity. 

We  may  wonder  that  a  Jansenist  should  seek  to 
be  a  missionary !  In  his  eyes,  salvation  is  the  free, 


70 

the  capricious,  gift  of  Heaven.  Mere  Angelique  at 
least  was  clear  on  this  point  when  she  murmured  : 
'  Tous  les  princes  du  monde  ne  sauraient  faire  lever 
le  soleil  une  heure  plus  tot ;  toute  Teloquence  qu'on 
se  peut  imaginer  ne  saurait  faire  voir  la  verite  a  une 
personne  qui  n'est  pas  encore  eclairee  par  Dieu." 
A  true  conversion  (Mere  Angelique  would  say)  is  the 
irresistible  working  of  interior  grace.  Had  Pascal 
forgotten  the  night  of  Joy  and  Fire?  .  .  .  To  men 
of  genius  their  own  emotions  and  experiences 
become  a  sort  of  artistic  masterpieces  which,  when 
they  reach  their  hour  of  perfection,  drop  off  from 
their  lives,  like  a  fruit  from  the  tree,  making  room 
for  new  developments.  Had  the  Jansenism  of 
Pascal  come  to  its  maturity  in  the  Provinciates  f 
The  mind  of  Pascal  suffered  again  a  mysterious 
crisis  and  catastrophe,  and  he  stood  among  the 
fragments  and  ruins  of  his  work,  suddenly  called 
away  from  the  task  he  had  pursued  with  so  much 
passion.  And  the  pen  of  the  Provinciales  dropped 
from  his  grasp. 

A  new  ideal  called  him — the  greatest  a  religious 
man  can  conceive.  He  felt  himself  destined  to 
rescue  immortal  souls  for  the  life  eternal.  He  gave, 
at  Port  Royal,  a  lecture,  lasting  from  two  to  three 
hours,  an  outburst  of  marvellous  eloquence— 
("toute  1'eloquence  qu'on  se  peut  imaginer")— 
which  was  a  scheme  or  project  of  his  Apology. 

By  comparing  the  notes  of  the  lecture  with  the 
fragments  of  the  Pensees  we  may  divine  that,  like 


PASCAL  71 

the  Provinciates,  the  Apology  would  have  begun 
with  a  series  of  brilliant  dialogues,  gradually  rising 
to  the  sublimest  heights  of  sustained  eloquence. 
There  would  have  been  a  Free-thinker — a  man  like 
the  Chevalier  de  Mere :  one  of  those  cultivated 
liber  tins  so  frequent  at  the  Court  of  the  young 
Louis  XIV — a  reader  of  Montaigne,  a  man  of  the 
world,  an  "honnete  homme."  And  he  would  have 
met,  no  doubt,  some  disciple  of  Du  Vair  and 
Epictetus — a  man  of  much  conscience  but  of  little 
faith.  And  these  would  have  come  in  contact  with 
a  Christian,  a  Jansenist — with  Pascal.  Parts  of 
their  objections,  portions  of  his  persuasion,  remain 
—dilapidated,  ruined — in  the  Pensees;  and  (as  ruins 
are  sometimes  more  moving  than  any  finished  struc- 
ture) they  form  a  marvellous  debate.  An  interior 
desolation,  an  internal  consolation,  combine  in  an 
antiphony  so  moving,  so  grand,  so  deep,  so  simple, 
that  it  is,  to  him  who  reads,  as  the  voice  of  an  inmost 
soul.  The  Meditations  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  the 
Imitation  of  Christ  are  not  more  sincere  than  these 
exact  and  fiery  fragments.  .  .  . 

And  yet  (oh  marvel !)  the  Pensees  are  composed 
in  great  part  with  the  thoughts  and  sometimes  with 
the  very  phrases  of  the  free-thinking  Montaigne ! 
Even  as  the  Provinciales  are,  in  brief,  a  resume  of 
Arnauld,  so  the  Pensees  are  a  concentration  and  a 
paraphrase  of  the  Essais.  The  genius  of  Pascal 
(perhaps  all  genius)  appears  to  consist  less  in  inven- 
tion than  in  a  happy  gift  of  combination  :  some 


72 

other  man  invents,  let  us  say,  the  number  Two; 
while  another,  quite  different  person,  hits  on  the 
same  discovery;  but  the  genius  puts  them  together 
and  announces  Four  !  As  we  express  our  thoughts, 
however  intimate  and  particular,  in  everybody's 
words,  taken  from  the  common  stock,  so  he  delivers 
his  soul  in  a  new  language,  formed  of  ready-made 
ideas,  which  he  collects  and  combines  with  such 
force  and  vivacity  that  a  new  conception  breaks  out 
from  their  assemblage.  .  .  .  "  Ce  n'est  pas  dans 
Montaigne,"  said  Pascal,  "mais  dans  moi  que  je 
trouve  tout  ce  que  j'y  vois."  He  borrows  from 
Montaigne  in  order  to  convert  Montaigne. 

In  this  internal  argument,  the  romantic  nineteenth 
century  saw  the  dialogue  of  doubt  and  faith  in  the 
soul  of  Pascal — Vangoisse  de  Pascal !  But  his 
impassioned,  violent  and  anxious  soul  never 
doubted.  The  questions,  the  scruples,  the  scep- 
ticism belong  to  his  antagonist,  that  dear  friend 
Mere  (for  Pascal,  ever  concrete  and  positive,  incar- 
nates the  soul  to  be  saved  in  a  beloved  person); 
they  are  subordinated  to  the  purpose  of  the  work. 
The  Pensees  are  like  the  stars  in  the  sky,  so  grand, 
so  brilliant;  they  are  beings  of  distant  flame,  appar- 
ently disconnected,  sprinkled  solitary  through 
space;  yet  these,  like  those,  obey  with  fixed  pre- 
cision a  hidden  law.  .  .  .  Pascal  uses  all  the  argu- 
ments of  Montaigne  (or  Mere)  to  establish  the 
vanity  of  human  reason,  its  disproportion  and 
incapacity  to  contain  the  Infinite.  And  then  he 
advances  an  argument  of  Raimond  of  Sebunda  to 


PASCAL  73 

show  that,  inadequate  as  our  mind  may  be  to  grasp 
ultimate  truth,  it  is  excellent  as  a  practical  instru- 
ment to  be  used  for  our  benefit  and  profit.  Truth, 
in  so  far  as  we  may  attain  to  it,  is  that  which  our 
intelligence  is  compelled,  by  heredity  or  experience, 
to  approve  as  a  basis  for  conduct;  and  the  purpose 
of  thinking  is  to  develop  beliefs  which  shall  ensure 
our  happiness  in  life  and  in  death.  Let  us  use  our 
reason  therefore  for  that  which  it  is  apt  to  secure — 
our  advantage.  ...  Is  not  the  chance  of  eternal 
beatitude  an  advantage  ?  Let  us  risk  to-day  against 
the  hazard  of  eternity.  And  Pascal  cries  to  that 
gamester,  Mere :  "  II  faut  travailler  pour  1'incer- 
tain  !  "  —sacrifice  one's  life  for  the  chance  of  so 
infinite  a  stake.  Then,  bringing  forward  the  argu- 
ment of  the  wager,  he  plans  the  centre  and  crux  of 
the  Pensees:  There  is  a  truth  beyond  the  truth 
qui  n'est  que  vrai ! 

This  Truth,  which  is  Charity,  is  not  only  beyond 
reason  :  it  is  incompatible  with  reason — of  another 
order,  infinitely  vaster,  in  violent  contrast  to  the 
natural  order—  "  un  renversement  continuel  du  pour 
au  contre."  It  is  the  bursting  into  our  lives  of  a 
factor  absolutely  new,  with  a  flash  and  a  thunder- 
clap, with  an  upheaval  and  downthrow  of  our  land- 
marks and  our  altars.  Caught  up  in  the  grip  of  a 
new  mysterious  power,  we  burn  what  we  adored,  and 
that  which  we  adored  we  cast  to  the  burning. 

Such,  in  the  eyes  of  Pascal,  is  the  working  of 
grace.  .  .  .  The  whole  width  of  Heaven  separates 
such  a  conception  from  the  religion  of  a  Fe*nelon ! 


74  THE   FRENCH    IDEAL 

God,  in  the  sight  of  Pascal,  is  a  force  from  with- 
out that  ravishes  with  violence,  like  a  thief  in  the 
night,  that  takes  up  few,  indeed,  in  the  chariot  of 
His  fire,  leaving  to  night  and  destruction  the 
majority  of  even  virtuous  men — for  Grace  is  rare 
as  Beauty  or  Genius  is  rare. 

And  Fenelon  feels  that  God  is  everywhere, 
implanted  in  every  soul  at  birth,  fostered  secretly, 
silently,  insensibly,  even  where  His  operations  are 
unshown ;  the  underground  river  feeding  all  the 
springs  of  life. 

V ere  tu  es  Deus  absconditus '!  Mysterious  text 
that  accords  in  harmony  the  two  divergent  Mystics  : 
Pascal  and  Fenelon  each  adore  the  hidden  God. 
c  Toute  religion  qui  ne  dit  pas  que  Dieu  est  cache 
n'est  pas  veritable  "  (Pensee  585).  But,  to  Pascal, 
this  hidden,  this  uncertain  Deity  is  no  mere  Sum 
and  Soul  of  the  Universe.  .  .  .  Pascal  is  the  least 
pantheistic  of  thinkers.  Though  none,  like  this 
mathematician,  has  described  the  attraction  of  the 
Infinite,  and  the  mysterious  abyss  of  the  planet- 
sprinkled  sky,  yet  he  never  lets  those  vague  depths 
absorb  his  worship ;  and  he  might  say,  like  Job  :  "  I 
have  seen  the  moon  advance  in  her  majesty,  and  I 
have  not  bowed  the  knee !  " 

For,  let  him  repeat,  there  is  a  truth  beyond  the 
truth  "  qui  n'est  que  vrai."  There  is  the  instinct  of 
the  heart :  "  les  raisons  du  cceur  que  la  raison  ne 
connait  pas."  By  an  illumination  of  the  heart  we 
may  feel  that  God  is  a  Person,  we  may  know  that 


PASCAL  75 

His  personality  excludes  our  own.  So  that  in  order 
to  attain  a  conception  of  His  Divinity  we  must 
renounce  ourselves.  God  is  to  be  approached,  not 
by  reason,  but  by  charity  and  self-denial. 

Pascal  did  not  pretend  to  prove  the  truth  of 
religion  by  a  geometrical  demonstration.  To  move 
the  will,  to  touch  the  feelings,  was  his  aim,  and  all 
that  he  thought  needful  for  his  end.  He  cared  little 
for  a  merely  intellectual  conviction  :  "  Quand  un 
homme  serait  persuade  que  les  proportions  des 
nombres  sont  des  verites  immaterielles,  eternelles, 
et  dependantes  d'une  premiere  verite  en  qui  elles 
subsistent  et  qu'on  appelle  Dieu — je  ne  le  trouverais 
pas  beaucoup  avance  pour  son  salut." 

These  thoughts,  these  scattered  notes,  were 
written,  criss-cross,  anyhow,  with  inconceivable 
abbreviations  and  allusiveness,  on  scraps  of  paper, 
backs  of  letters,  sometimes  in  Pascal's  own  hand- 
writing, sometimes  in  that  of  his  sister  Gilberte, 
while  others  are  dictated  to  a  friend,  even  to  a  child, 
or  taken  down  by  an  illiterate  person,  with  mistakes 
in  spelling  and  traces  of  the  pronunciation  of 
Auvergne—  •"  chanchelier,"  for  instance,  instead  of 
"chancelier."  Piteous  indications  of  dire  physical 
weakness  !  When  Pascal  composed  his  masterpiece 
—perhaps  the  chief  masterpiece  of  French  thought 
and  French  prose — he  was  no  longer  in  a  condition 
to  white  it  down  For  four  long  years  he  lingered 
in  a  state  of  nervous  prostation,  often  exhibiting 
1  Preface  de  Port  Royal 


76  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

the  features  of  an  hysterical  paresia— "une  espece 
d'aneantissement  et  d'abattement  general  de  toutes 
ses  forces,"  wrote  his  friend  Carcavi,  in  April  1659. 
He  hoped  to  emerge  again,  as  he  had  emerged 
before,  and  meanwhile,  with  pain  and  difficulty, 
accumulated  his  materials,  jotting  down  such  stray 
thoughts  or  expressions  as  came  into  his  mind 
—sometimes  the  faintest  clue  (as,  for  instance, 
"  talon  bien  tourne  "),  yet  sufficient  to  lead  in  the 
labyrinth. 

They  are  the  materials  for  the  Apologia,  but  they 
are  not  only  the  materials  for  the  Apologia;  many 
of  the  Pensees  are  of  an  earlier  date.  Some  while 
after  his  nervous  illness  of  1647,  Pascal,  finding  his 
memory  less  trustworthy,  appears  to  have  begun  to 
note  his  thoughts  as  they  came.  The  earliest  are 
parallel  with  his  great  experiment.  Then  come 
those  on  the  spirit  of  geometry  and  the  intuitive 
sense,  which'  rhyme,  as  it  were,  to  the  aphorisms  in 
the  Discours  sur  les  Passions  de  V Amour ;  while  the 
Pensees  on  the  Three  Orders  owe  their  origin  to  the 
Traites  sur  le  Triangle  Arithmetique .  The  Holy 
Thorn  is  responsible  for  many  :  it  sent  long  echoes 
down  the  memory  of  Pascal,  it  was  one  of  his  last 
great  preoccupations;  with  the  experiment  of  the 
Puy  de  Dome,  and  the  night  of  his  conversion,  it 
was  one  of  the  three  principal  events  of  his  moral 
life.  .  .  .  Chiefly  written  between  1653  and  1661, 
the  Pensees  form  a  sort  of  intimate  journal,  a 
private  record  of  Pascal's  intellectual  activity — 


PASCAL  77 

perhaps  the  most  direct  and  the  most  sincere  that 
any  man  has  ever  left  in  writing. 


XV 

Pascal's  genius  had  ever  been  of  the  fitful, 
involuntary,  unconscious  sort,  that  does  not  depend 
upon  attention  or  application,  which  appears  as 
characteristic  of  mathematical  discovery  as  of  the 
inventions  of  lyric  poetry.  Our  great  contempo- 
rary, Henri  Poincare,  has  told  us  that  all  his  own 
discoveries  have  been  made  in  moments  of  absent- 
mindedness  suddenly  traversed  by  a  flash  of  auto- 
matic insight.1  No  vigour  of  reason,  no  effort  of 
logic,  accompanied  these  marvellous  combinations. 
They,  no  less  than  the  poet's  frenzy,  were  the 
triumph  of  sensibility  and  imagination. 

And,  doubtless,  these  rare  moments  were  the 
recompense  of  many  previous  vigils,  half  forgotten ; 
vigils  which  had  appeared  as  fruitless  as  they  were 
arduous,  when  conscious  effort  had  appeared  to  toil 
in  vain;  vigils  which  had  seemed  so  useless  that 
often  the  weary  mind  had  thrown  down  its  burden, 
abandoned  its  quest,  gone  off  on  some  other  easier 
track,  completely  distracted  from  its  hopeless 
search.  .  .  .  But  something  in  the  mind,  subli- 
minal, worked  quietly  on,  completing  the  data, 

1  Henri   Poincare,    "  L'Invention    Mathematique,"   Revue  du 
Mois,  September  1908. 


78  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

collecting  the  evidence,  arranging  a  secret  precious 
hoard  till  the  great  moment  came,  when  one  brusque 
sublime  magnesium-flash  showed  all  the  wealth 
arrayed  at  its  disposal — an  unsuspected  Tom 
Tiddler's  ground — a  store  of  hidden  treasure.  And 
the  Self  that  we  call  /  had  but  to  choose  and  to 
combine. 

This  sudden,  brilliant  flashing  of  a  torch  across 
the  deep  recesses  of  the  spirit  had  more  than  once 
illuminated  the  labours  of  Pascal,  generally  in 
periods  of  ill-health. 

About  the  time  that  he  was  first  occupied  with 
his  Apology,  he  spent  one  livelong  night  in  the 
tortures  of  a  neuralgic  headache.  Suddenly,  with- 
out any  conscious  preoccupation,  the  answer  to  the 
geometrical  problem  of  the  cycloid  rushed  into  his 
mind  and  filled  it;  one  thought  succeeded  another 
without  effort :  "  elles  luy  descouvrirent  comme 
malgre  luy  la  demonstration  de  la  roulette  dont  il 
f  ut  luy  mesme  surpris  !  .  .  .  il  la  trouva  sans  y 
penser,"  wrote  Madame  Perier  in  her  life  of  her 
brother. 

On  the  morrow  he  told  the  circumstance  to  the 
Duke  of  Roannez,  who  easily  persuaded  him  to 
publish  his  discovery,  arguing  that  this  scientific 
triumph  would  augment  Pascal's  authority  in  the 
eyes  of  those  whom  he  hoped  to  convert.  The 
manner  of  making  this  demonstration  known  is  rich 
of  the  Old  Adam,  of  the  Natural  Pascal,  freakish, 
fond  of  disguises,  fond  of  prestige,  of  fascination, 


PASCAL  79 

subtlety  and  sway !  He  offered  a  prize — a  purse 
of  money — and  challenged  the  mathematicians  of 
the  world  to  throw  light  on  the  geometrical  pro- 
perties of  the  cycloid — (the  curve  described  by  a 
point  in  the  circumstance  of  a  rolling  wheel) — offer- 
ing it,  not  in  his  own  name,  but  in  that  of  one  Amos 
Dettonville — the  word  is  an  anagram  of  Louis  de 
Montalte.  The  exercises  were  to  reach  Pascal's 
friend,  Carcavi,  between  June  and  October  1658. 
Huygens,  the  youthful  Christopher  Wren,  John 
Wallis,  several  others,  sent  in  approximate  solu- 
tions. Then  Pascal  published  his  own  discovery 
and  took  the  prize. 

In  this  affair  of  the  cycloid  Pascal's  mind  appears 
to  have  been  working  simultaneously  on  two  levels  : 
elaborating  the  Apology,  discovering  the  geometrical 
properties  of  the  cycloid.  And,  in  the  last  years 
of  his  life,  this  double  development  of  his  com- 
plicated personality  appears  to  have  affected  his 
religious  experience.  There  is  a  grave  debate 
among  the  more  recent  biographers  of  Pascal — the 
argument  is  as  to  a  Third  Conversion  :  did  Pascal 
die  a  Jansenist,  or  was  he  absolutely  reconciled  to 
the  regular  Church?  Relying  on  his  discovery  of 
the  manuscript  memoirs  of  Pascal's  last  confessor, 
M.  Ernest  Jovy  would  have  us  believe  that  the 
great  Jansenist  withdrew  from  the  heretical  outposts 
of  Port  Royal,  and  died  completely  at  one  with 
Rome;  while  the  Abbe  Bremond  and  Father  Petitot 
see  him  as  on  the  very  brink  of  schism,  saved  by  an 


80  THE  FRENCH   IDEAL 

early  death  from  open  revolt  against  the  Vatican. 
And  for  my  part  I  believe  the  inner  life  of  Pascal  to 
have  been  cleft  in  twain — his  will,  his  activity,  his 
passions  remained  Jansenist  to  the  verge  of  heresy; 
his  spiritual  and  contemplative  self  was  gradually 
evolving  in  the  sense  of  orthodox  Catholicism. 

In  his  active  and  theological  life  Pascal  was  never 
more  passionately  revolutionary  than  during  his  last 
year  on  earth ;  but  his  mystical  life  (that  uncon- 
scious, that  subliminal  self)  was  winning  free  of  the 
iron  bonds  and  dogmas  of  Jansenism;  there  are 
passages  in  the  Pensees  that  contradict  the  Calvin- 
istic  tenets  of  Port  Royal;  and  almost  certainly, 
had  Pascal  lived,  the  sudden  flashing  of  the  inner 
torch  would  have  inaugurated  a  new  phase  of  his 
spiritual  development.  But,  like  his  works,  the  life 
of  Pascal  was  a  fragment — a  miraculous  fragment. 


XVI 

On  the  ;th  of  March,  1659,  Ismae'l  Bouilliau 
wrote  to  Huygens :  "  Monsieur  Pascal  s'est  confine 
je  ne  sais  ou  dans  un  phrontistere  de  Jansenistes 
que  j 'ignore  encore j  "  and  on  the  i3th  of  June  the 
same  correspondent  signified  to  Leopold  dei  Medici 
that  the  French  savant  was  utterly  exhausted 
by  the  geometrical  demonstrations  of  the  Inven- 
tions de  Amos  Dettonville.  Carcavi,  in  August, 
writes  to  Huygens,  that  the  extreme  weakness  and 
prostration  of  Pascal's  malady  are  still  excessive. 


PASCAL  81 

"  II  se  porte  neantmoins  mieux  depuis  quelques 
jours  qu'il  est  alle  prendre  1'air  de  la  campagne, 
et  nous  esperons  le  voir  retabli  dans  sa  premiere 
sante,  mais  il  lui  faut  encore  du  temps."  But,  a 
month  later,  another  of  Huygens's  correspondents 
gives  a  very  poor  account  of  the  invalid's  progress, 
and  it  is  only  in  July  1660  that  Du  Cast  is  able  to 
reassure  the  Dutch  astronomer  :  "  M.  Pascal  se  porte 
notablement  mieux  qu'il  ne  le  faisait,  selon  ce  que 
m'ecrit  son  beau-frere  qui  est  avec  lui  a  Clermont 
en  Auvergne."  * 

The  newly  discovered  Memoirs  of  Father 
Beurrier  (Pascal's  parish  priest  in  Paris,  when  he 
lodged  in  his  sister's  house)  throw  a  new  light  on 
this  period  of  absence  from  the  capital.2  It  was 
not  health  alone  that  sent  him  to  the  country,  but 
a  spiritual  retreat,  a  change  of  life,  a  remorse,  doubt- 
less, for  his  return  to  the  curiosities  of  science,  as 
well  as  a  withdrawal  from  the  arena  of  religious 
debate — from  "  les  questions  si  difficiles  de  la  grace 
et  de  la  predestination  "—in  order  to  muse  upon  his 
latter  end,  and  to  set  down  such  thoughts  as  might 
bring  unbelievers  to  the  fold. 

"  He  made  a  second  retreat,2  more  perfect  than 
the  first,  some  two  years  before  his  death,  God 
willing  thereby  to  dispose  him  towards  the  precious 
death  of  saints;  for  he  spent  several  weeks  in 
great  exercises  of  the  soul,  in  penitence,  mortifica- 

1  See  Strowski,  vol.  iii.  338. 

2  See  Ernest  Jovy,  Pascal  inedit,  vol.  ii. 


82  THE   FRENCH    IDEAL 

tion,  silence  and  self-examination  :  passing  all  his 
previous  life  in  strict  review.  Whereafter  he  made 
a  general  confession  of  his  sins;  and  gave  great 
alms,  selling  his  coach,  his  horses,  the  hangings 
from  his  walls,  his  handsome  furniture,  his  silver 
plate,  and  even  the  books  in  his  library,  saving  only 
the  Bible,  Saint  Augustine,  and  a  very  few  other 
volumes.  And  he  gave  all  the  money  to  the  poor. 
And  he  sent  away  his  servants,  and  took  up  his 
lodging  and  boarded  with  his  sister,  Mademoiselle 
Perier,1  in  order  to  be  no  more  troubled  with 
the  care  of  a  household — I  know  this,  for  she 
told  me  so  herself.  And  he  founded  the  order 
of  his  life  on  the  rules  of  the  Gospel,  which 
are  to  renounce  oneself,  and  all  pleasure,  and  all 
superfluity." 

This  mystic  retreat  was  a  conversion  less,  per- 
haps, to  or  from  Jansenism  than  to  the  imitation  of 
Christ.  It  is  at  this  date,  probably,  that  we  must 
place  the  beautiful  Mystere  de  Jesus,  one  of  those 
"  grands  exercices  spirituels  "  that  occupied  Pascal 
in  his  retreat.  It  is  strange  to  reflect  that  these  few 
pages — the  very  soul  and  essence  of  Christianity,  the 
spontaneous  breath  of  prayer — were  written,  in  all 
probability,  in  obedience  to  the  order  of  a  director ! 
It  was  the  custom  of  Port  Royal  for  the  superior  to 
send  every  month  a  subject  for  meditation,  or  "  mys- 
tery," to  her  penitents  and  solitaries.  Such  was  the 
origin  of  that  "ecrit  de  Jacqueline  Pascal  sur  le 

1  Until  the  middle  of  the  i8th  century  the  ladies  of  the  middle 
class  were  styled  not  Madame  but  Mademoiselle. 


PASCAL  88 

mystere  de  la  mort  de  N.  S.  Jesus  Christ"  which  she 
had  composed  in  1651 ;  and  now,  ten  years  later,  she 
herself,  perhaps,  may  have  proposed  the  same  sub- 
ject to  her  brother  !  With  what  a  strong  and  soaring 
sweep  of  wing  Pascal  rises  to  this  elevation !  All 
the  Infinite  made  man,  and  that  man  Christ  Jesus ! 
Infinitely  pitiful  and  Infinitely  wounded,  flooding 
with  His  miraculous  charity  the  soul  that  has 
emptied  itself  of  earthly  lusts  and  cares !  Divine 
colloquy,  in  which  the  wounded  Christ  consoles  the 
suffering  mortal,  "  Les  medecins  ne  te  gueriront  pas, 
car  tu  mourras  a  la  fin,  mais  c'est  moi  qui  gueris  et 
rends  le  corps  immortel !  " 

"I  am  more  thy  Friend  than  A.  or  N.  (than 
Arnauld  or  than  Nicole !).  I  have  done  more  for 
thee  than  they,  and  they  would  not  surfer  at  thy 
hands  what  I  endure.  .  .  . 

"  I  love  thee  more  than  thou  hast  loved  thy  stains 
and  blotches— thy  vanities  and  curiosities.  .  .  . 

"  I  am  thy  Guide,  since  thine  earthly  guide  can- 
not lead  thee.  Perhaps  I  come  to  thee  in  answer 
to  his  prayer,  and  thus,  invisible,  he  leads  thee  still. 
Be  not  disquieted. 

"  Console-toi,  tu  ne  me  chercherais  pas,  si  tu  ne 
m'avais  pas  trouve. 

:'Je  pensais  a  toi  dans  mon  agonie.  J'ai  verse 
telles  gouttes  de  mon  sang  pour  toi. 

"  C'est  mon  affaire  que  ta  conversion.  .  .  ,1 

"  Ne  t'inquietes  pas  !  " 

1  Pens'ec  553.     Brunschvicg,  vol.  ii. 


84  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

XVII 

In  reading  M.  Beurrier's  Memoir es — still  more  in 
reading  Madame  Perier's  Life — we  grow  sometimes 
impatient.  We  feel  so  grievously  the  nervous 
tension,  the  irritable  weakness  of  this  great  sorrow- 
ful Pascal,  dying  in  self-imposed  discomfort — wait- 
ing on  himself  with  faltering  steps,  banishing  his 
curtains  and  carpets  as  unnecessary,  and  then  suffer- 
ing the  torments  of  neuralgia  in  his  draughty  room. 
We  hate  the  spiked  girdle  that  he  wore  beneath  his 
dress,  and  used  to  stab  against  his  emaciated  side  to 
punish  some  movement  of  anger  or  ambition.  Our 
heart  goes  out  to  the  mothering  sister  who  half 
admires  and  half  deplores  her  brother's  grim 
austerity.  But  the  life  of  the  ascetic  is  not  merely 
a  life  of  renunciation — its  aim  is  not  privation,  but 
victory,  but  achievement.  Let  us  not  forget  that 
acrxyjrifc  means  an  athlete — one  who  has  exercised 
himself  and  grown  strong.  It  means  one  who, 
knowing  the  narrow  capacity  of  the  human  soul,  has 
emptied  his  pilgrim-bottle  of  the  red  wine  of  our 
hillsides  in  order  to  fill  it  with  a  diviner  elixir.  A 
nature  as  rich,  as  various,  as  heterogeneous  as  that 
of  Pascal  may  feel  an  instinctive  desire  for  such  a 
discipline.  Nor  need  we  suppose  that  the  course  of 
the  ascetic  was  peculiarly  grievous  to  Pascal.  He 
had  liked  things  handsome  about  him  from  a  fastidi- 
ous nobility  of  taste,  an  aristocratic  turn  of  mind; 
but  he  was  no  sensualist,  nor  even  (as  a  poet  or  artist 


PASCAL  85 

may  be)  delicately  alive  to  the  purer  external  plea- 
sures. Not  a  line  in  his  writing  shows  any  sensitive- 
ness to  colour,  perfume,  music,  landscape;  his  mind 
was  occupied  with  other,  rarer,  wholly  abstract  de- 
lights :  the  sense  of  infinity,  of  continuity,  of 
capacity  and  proportion.  Such  a  man  is  not  the 
slave  of  pleasure  and  of  pain.  Indeed,  in  privation, 
he  may  taste  a  keen  exquisite  charm,  in  spite  of  its 
pricks  and  stings — all  the  more  exquisite  for  its 
pricks  and  stings :  the  sense  of  detachment,  of 
liberation,  of  rising  superior.  Perhaps  the  funda- 
mental reality  of  Pascal's  character  was  this  in- 
stinct, this  need  of  dominance,  of  rising  superior. 
And  this  could  be  satisfied  by  the  cruel  exercise  of 
the  ascetic. 

From  whatsoever  reason  men  embrace  it,  the 
ascetic  life  has  often  one  extraordinary  consequence 
—so  frequent  that  we  may  almost  assimilate  it  to 
a  law :  the  ascetic  is  charitable.  All  that  he  takes, 
first  from  himself,  then  from  his  household  and 
family — all  this  love  and  cherishing  of  which  he 
deprives  himself,  and  them,  he  finds  himself 
endowed  with,  immensely  multiplied,  to  lavish  on 
his  neighbour,  his  innumerable  anonymous  neigh- 
bour. The  ascetic  is  the  one  man  who  really  feels 
the  identity  of  all  human  souls,  the  man  to  whom  / 
and  They  have  mysteriously  become  the  same  pro- 
noun. Yes,  in  his  grammar,  /  and  Thou  are  abol- 
ished, that  They  may  exist  alone  and  sovereignly. 
Pascal  repulsed  the  fond  anxiety  of  Gilberte.  But 


86  THE  FRENCH   IDEAL 

did  not  a  greater  than  Pascal  cry  to  a  tenderer 
mother :  Woman,  what  is  there  in  common  between 
thee  and  me?  .  .  .  He  had  certainly  upon  his  shelf 
the  life  of  Saint  Theresa,  translated  by  Arnauld 
d'Andilly  of  Port  Royal.  He  must  have  read  in  it, 
as  a  guide  to  conduct,  the  example  of  the  saint  and 
of  her  sister— 

"  Une  occasion  importante  m'ayant  obligee 
d'aller  chez  ma  sceur,  quoy  que  je  1'eusse  aimee 
auparavant  et  qu'elle  fust  meilleure  que  moy,  je 
demeurois  seule  le  plus  que  je  pouvois,  parce  que 
les  differences  de  nos  conditions — elle  estant  mariee 
et  moy  religieuse — ne  pouvait  nous  fournir  une 
matiere  agreable  d'entretien.  Je  sentis  neanmoins 
que  ses  peines  me  touchoient  davantage  que  n' 
auroient  fait  celles  d'une  autre  personne  qui  ne  m' 
auroient  pas  este  si  proche;  et  je  connus  par  la  que 
je  n'estois  pas  si  detachee  que  je  le  croyois,  mais 
que  j'avois  encore  besoin  de  fuir  les  occasions— 

The  rebuffs  that  Pascal  inflicted  on  Gilberte  were 
homages  to  her  power  over  his  soul,  that  soul  which 
he  wished  entirely  to  devote  to  the  love  of  Heaven 
and  the  service  of  the  poor. 

The  desire  of  perfection,  the  ardent  love  of  God, 
did  not  exclude,  even  in  this  new  saintly  Pascal,  the 
practical  sense  of  life  and  human  interests.  For 
years  he  had  been  frequently  crippled  by  a  nervous 
numbness  in  his  limbs,  and  the  chief  pleasure  of  his 
worldly  days  had  been  the  swift  coach-and-six  which 
had  rushed  to  obey  the  orders  of  his  impetuous 
spirit.  Pascal  had  loved  a  coach.  And  the  poor 


PASCAL  87 

can  never  ride  in  a  coach,  though  halt  or  maimed, 
though  pressed  for  time,  though  baffled  by  wind 
and  struck  by  storms  of  hail.  All  that  he  cared  no 
longer  to  bestow  upon  himself,  the  ascetic  (in  obedi- 
ence to  that  law  of  which  we  spoke)  now  longed  to 
lavish  on  the  poor  and  needy.  So  Pascal  invented 
the  omnibus,  the  "  carrosse  a  cinq  sols,"  and  formed 
his  project  into  a  company,  established  by  Royal 
Letters  Patent.  A  charming  letter  of  Gilberte 
Perier  to  M.  de  Pomponne  describes  the  triumphant 
progress  of  the  first  seven  omnibuses  set  in  circula- 
tion, on  Saturday,  March  18,  1662,  at  seven  o'clock 
in  the  morning. 

Pascal  always  appreciated  the  power  of  money, 
and  we  may  be  sure  (as  M.  Strowski  cannily 
remarks)  that  he  did  not  disdain  the  profits  of  the 
Omnibus  Company;  but  it  was  no  longer  that  he 
might  cut  a  respectable  figure  among  the  dukes,  and 
hide  his  lack  of  fortune,  that  he  grasped  his  gains. 
It  was  to  pour  them  (as  the  Magdalene  poured  her 
tears  aud  her  ointments)  into  those  wounds  on  the 
mystical  body  of  our  Lord — the  sufferings  of  the 
poor.  He  showed  himself  eager  to  snatch  his 
dividends — that  was  the  old  Adam  in  him;  but  he 
wished  to  send  them  entirely  to  the  victims  of  the 
floods  of  Blois.  ;' J'aime  la  pauvrete  parce  qu'Il  Fa 
aimee.  J'aime  les  biens,  parce  qu'ils  donnent  les 
moyens  d'en  assister  les  miserables  " — -and  one  of  the 
manuscripts  of  the  Pensees  bears  at  this  place  the 
mark  of  an  addition :  :<  J'aime  tous  les  homines 


88  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

comme  mes  freres  parce  qu'ils  sont  tous  rachetes." 
'Tous  rachetes"?  All  of  them  redeemed?  .  .  . 
,Was  not  the  doctrine  of  Jansenius  that  Christ  did 
not  die  for  all  mankind,  but  only  for  the  Elect? 
The  love  of  the  poor  was  widening,  melting  the 
dying  heart  of  Pascal,  and  loosening  the  bands  that 
bound  it  in  the  dogmas  of  Port  Royal. 

XVIII 

And  yet  Pascal  had  never  been  more  ardently 
and  combatively  Jansenist !  Strange  contradiction 
of  his  multiple  soul !  The  persecution  against  Port 
Royal  had  broken  out  afresh  and  aroused  all  the 
chivalry,  all  the  love  of  battle  and  amor  dominandi, 
that  formed  so  large  a  part  of  Pascal's  nature.  As 
he  wrote  about  this  time  to  a  friend  at  Clermont— - 

"  Le  desir  de  vaincre  est  si  naturel  que,  quand  il 
se  couvre  du  desir  de  faire  triompher  la  verite,  on 
prend  souvent  Tun  pour  1'autre;  et  on  croit  recher- 
cher  la  gloire  de  Dieu  en  cherchant  en  effet  la 
sienne."  1 

When  the  trouble  began,  Jacqueline  Pascal  was 
under-prioress  and  mistress  of  the  novices  at  Port 
Royal  des  Champs.  The  heart  of  the  Queen  had 
been  touched  by  the  so-called  miracle  of  the  Holy 
Thorn;  but  now  there  was  a  youthful  King  to  con- 
tend with,  an  absolute  young  monarch  enamoured 
of  unity,  who  besought  the  Assembly  of  Clergy  to 
put  a  speedy  end  to  the  persistent  irregularities  of 
1  Brunschvicg,  vol.  ii.  p.  451  note. 


PASCAL  89 

Port  Royal.  The  truce  was  ended.  The  nuns  had 
been  left  in  peace;  the  solitaries  one  by  one  had 
crept  back  to  their  desert.  Yet,  since  the  Bull  of 
Alexander  VI I.  had  been  promulgated  in  France,  in 
March  1657,  the  storm  had  always  lingered  in  the 
skies.  It  burst  in  I66I.1 

In  April  the  little  girls  at  school  at  Port  Royal 
des  Champs  were  all  disbanded  by  order  of  the 
King;  in  May  the  novices  and  postulants  were  sent 
away;  on  June  8  the  Vicars-General  of  Paris  (who 
were  Gallican,  in  sympathy  with  Port  Royal,  yet 
submissive  to  the  Pope)  put  forth  again  the  Formu- 
lary, but  prefaced  by  a  Pastoral  Letter  requiring  no 
more  than  a  "  respectful  silence  "  for  the  point  of 
fact :  "  que  tous  demeurent  dans  le  respect  entier 
et  sincere  qui  est  du  aux  dites  constitutions,  sans 
precher,  ecrire  et  disputer  au  contraire ;  et  que  la 
signature  en  soit  un  temoignage  .  .  .  inviolable, 
par  laquelle  ils  s'y  engagent,  comme  de  leur  croy- 
ance  pour  la  decision  de  foi."  Silence,  that  is  to 
say,  for  the  point  of  fact;  submission  and  belief  for 
the  point  of  faith  :  the  old  quibble  dear  to  Arnauld 
and  to  Pascal.  And  it  was  rumoured  that  Pascal 
had  helped  the  Vicars-General  in  the  composition 
of  their  Pastoral  Letter.  .  .  .  Jacqueline  was  alone 
in  command  at  Port  Royal  when  she  received  it : 
she  read  it  in  a  storm  of  righteous  indignation;  she 
refused  to  sign :  "  False  prudence,  and  true 

1  See  the  admirable  chapter  of  Sainte-Beuve  in  his  Port  Royal, 
iii.  343  et  seq. 


90  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

cowardice  !  "  she  cried.  '  You  think  to  appease  our 
conscience  with  these  tricks  and  shifts?  II  n'y  a 
que  la  V  erite  que  delivre  v entablement"  A  fort- 
night later,  feeling  that  God  had  laid  His  red  coal 
upon  her  lips,  as  on  those  of  the  prophet,  Jacqueline 
wrote  to  the  Prioress  in  Paris  a  letter,  an  open  letter, 
meant  in  fact  for  Arnauld,  in  which  we  find  the  fire 
and  fierceness,  the  mordant  nervous  sincerity  of  her 
brother.  Yet  did  she  not  think  that  she  was  writing 
against  her  brother — her  dear  brother,  her  penitent 
of  yesteryear,  her  prophet  of  yesterday  ?  She  quotes 
the  Provinciates,  and  assimilates  the  Jesuitry  of  the 
Vicars-General  to  the  manoeuvres  of  Escobar.  Her 
letter  is  admirable  :  Pascal  might  have  written  it ! 

"Je  sais  le  respect  que  je  dois  a  MM.  les  Eve- 
ques,  mais  ma  conscience  ne  me  permet  pas  de 
signer  qu'une  chose  est  dans  un  livre  ou  je  ne  1'ai 
pas  vue.  Que  craignons  nous?  .  .  .  Mais  peut-on 
nous  retrancher  de  PEglise?  Mais  qui  ne  sait  que 
personne  n'en  peut  etre  retranchee  malgre  soi.  .  .  . 
Nous  pouvons  bien  etre  prives  des  marques,  mais 
non  jamais  de  1'effet  de  cette  union,  tant  que  nous 
conservons  la  charite.  .  .  .  User  de  deguisements 
et  biaiser !  .  .  .  Je  vous  le  demande,  ma  tres  chere 
sceur,  au  nom  de  Dieu,  'dites  moi  quelle  difference 
vous  trouvez  entre  ses  deguisements  et  donner  de 
1'encens  a  une  idole  sous  pretexte  d'une  croix  qu'on 
a  dans  sa  manche  ? " 

Sister  Jacqueline  de  Sainte  Euphemie  had  evi- 
dently read  the  Provinciates,  for  this  is  a  reproach 


PASCAL  91 

that  Louis  de  Montalte  imputes  to  the  Jesuit 
missionaries  in  China. 

On  the  morrow  of  this  fiery  letter,  Jacqueline's 
heart  relented  :  she  wrote  to  Arnauld  begging  him 
to  show  her  missive  to  Pascal—  •"  s'il  se  porte  bien  "; 
a  touching  testimony  of  sisterly  anxiety.  Her 
brother  certainly  saw  the  letter,  and  felt  the  vibra- 
tion of  the  secret  fibre  that  knit  the  heart  of  Jacque- 
line to  his  own.  "  II  ne  pouvait  plus  aymer  personne 
qu'il  aymoit  ma  sceur,"  wrote  Madame  Perier ;  "  car 
il  y  avait  une  si  grande  correspondance  entre  leurs 
sentiments  qu'ils  convenoient  de  tout;  assurement 
leur  cceur  n'etoit  qu'un  cceur."  Fortified  by  the 
faith  and  sincerity  of  Jacqueline,  Pascal  broke  with 
the  Vicars-General,  with  Arnauld,  with  Nicole,  with 
M.  Singlin,  with  all  the  prudent  pastors  of  Port 
Royal  and  declared  himself  against  the  signing  of 
the  Formulary. 

One  must  perhaps  have  lived  in  the  heart  of  some 
great  sect  or  faction  (Home  Rule,  the  Dreyfus 
affair,  or  Modernism)  to  realise  how  readily  the 
sentiments  of  animosity  and  suspicion,  exercised  by 
incessant  combat  with  an  adversary,  may  divert  and 
attack  the  different  members  of  one  party.  Port 
Royal  was  immediately  divided  into  two  camps  : 
those  who  went  with  Pascal,  those  who  were  with 
Arnauld.  To  sign,  or  not  to  sign,  that  was  the  ques- 
tion. In  July  1 66 1  Jacqueline  signed;  and  she  died 
in  October — the  brave  Jacqueline  who  had  ex- 
claimed :  "  When  bishops  have  the  courage  of 


92 

spinsters,  it  is  time  that  spinsters  should  have  the 
courage  of  bishops !  "     In  benciing  that  undaunted 
spirit,  they  had  broken  it — or  rather,  the  heart  was 
broken.     At   thirty-six   years   of   age   she    died— 
"  premiere  victime  de  la  signature." 

In  losing  Jacqueline,  Pascal  went  near  to  losing 
Port  Royal.  For  now  again,  as  after  his  father's 
death,  his  generous  soul  gave  harbour  to  the  pro- 
jects, desires,  and  character  of  whom  he  mourned— 
taking  on  himself  those  activities  which  the  beloved 
dead  no  longer  can  pursue.  Dearly  as  he  loved 
Arnauld,  he  maintained  the  ideas  of  Jacqueline 
harshly  and  angrily  against  Arnauld.  The  great 
Arnauld  loved  him  still,  and  more  than  once  risked 
life  and  liberty  to  go  and  see  him;  but  Nicole  (a 
smaller,  smoother,  suppler  spirit)  never  quite  for- 
gave the  despotic  tone  of  Pascal's  recriminations ; 
and  murmured,  years  after,  that  he  could  not  endure 
"  d'etre  si  fierement  regente."  The  Vicars-General 
having  withdrawn  their  letter,  and  presented  the 
Formulary  in  all  its  nakedness,  the  doctors  of  Port 
Royal  drew  up  a  "rider"  which  they  advised  the 
nuns  to  add  to  their  signature—  "  considerant  que 
dans  1'ignorance  ou  nous  sommes  de  toutes  les 
choses  qui  sont  audessus  de  notre  profession  et  de 
notre  sexe,  tout  ce  que  nous  pouvons  est  de  rendre 
temoignage  de  la  purete  de  notre  Foi."  It  was  on 
this  question  that  Pascal  separated  himself  from  his 
old  friends  and  drew  up  indeed  the  draft  of  some 
unpublished  Petites  Lettres,  as  fierce  as  the  Pro- 


PASCAL  93 

vmciales,  but  directed  against  Port  Royal.  One 
evening  in  November  there  was  a  conference  of 
these  warring  spirits  in  Pascal's  room;  Pascal  as 
usual  was  "  accable  d'un  mal  de  tete  perpetuel,"  but 
he  surmounted  his  weakness  in  the  ardent  effort  to 
impress  his  convictions  on  the  minds  of  his  old 
friends.  When  he  found  them  slip  from  his  grasp 
unmodified,  in  the  passion  of  his  disappointment 
his  head  swam,  and  he  fell  senseless  in  a  swoon. 
These  loud  voices,  these  unreasonable  men  with 
swelling  throats,  were  they  the  representatives  on 
earth  of  Infinite  Unity — of  Infinite  Charity  ?  ...  It 
was  all  his  Past  that  failed  him !  In  that  hour  of 
bitterness  he  too,  no  doubt,  exclaimed :  "  My  God, 
my  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me  !  "  and  in 
that  quiet  Jansenist  parlour  there  rose,  invisible,  a 
cross  on  Calvary. 

Assuredly  the  friends  and  adversaries  of  Pascal 
were  touched  by  this  testimony  of  his  grief  and 
anger.  They  knew  that  his  physical  state  was 
responsible  for  the  excitement  and  fever  of  his  feel- 
ings. There  were  hours  when  the  irritability  of  his 
nerves  was  such  that  it  seemed  impossible  to  please 
or  satisfy  him — until  he  became  aware  of  this  im- 
patience of  his  spirit;  and  then  (his  sister  tells  us) 
he  would  melt  into  such  a  sudden  sweetness  "et 
reparoit  incontinent  sa  faute  par  des  traitemens  si 
honnestes,  qu'il  n'a  jamais  perdu  1'amitie  de  per- 
sonne  par  la." 

Indeed,  Pascal,  for  all  his  fieriness,  never  lost  a 


94  THE  FRENCH   IDEAL 

friend.  The  choleric  Roberval,  Auzoult  (whom  he 
may  have  sacrificed  unconsciously  to  his  own 
supremacy);  Descartes,  who  so  grievously  com- 
plained of  him ;  the  Duke  of  Roannez,  whose  young 
sister  he  had  sent  to  a  nunnery ;  Arnauld  and  Nicole, 
with  whom  he  had  so  fiercely  disputed  the  affair  of 
the  Formulary — not  one  of  them  could  keep  a  sense 
of  rancour  against  this  soul  of  candour  and  sincerity 
— yes,  perhaps  Nicole !  There  was  a  charm  in 
Pascal — something  of  his  sister  Jacqueline's  sweet- 
ness and  simplicity.  Now  that  he  was  ill,  forgetful 
of  their  late  dissensions,  Arnauld,  who  was  in  hiding, 
came  more  than  once  to  see  him  incognito,  and 
Nicole  also  visited  him.  "  II  les  re^ut  toujours  avec 
toutes  sortes  de  marques  de  tendresse  et  d'affection.1 
Probably  the  definitive  refusal  of  Port  Royal — from 
Arnauld  to  the  youngest  novice — to  sign  the  For- 
mulary as  it  was  finally  presented,  pure  and  simple 
—the  "  Formulaire  sans  queue "  —reconciled  the 
three  friends,  Nicole,  Arnauld  and  Pascal,  in  a 
peace  that  felt  already  the  shadow  of  death  and 
the  darkness  of  the  valley. 


XIX 

The  health  of  Pascal  declined  from  month  to 
month.  In  August  1660  he  had  written  to  Fermat, 
the  mathematician,  "  Je  suis  si  faible  que  je  ne  puis 

1  Recueil  d'  Utrecht,  p.  326. 


PASCAL  95 

marcher  sans  baton,  ni  me  tenir  a  cheval " ;  since 
then  the  death  of  Jacqueline,  the  austerities  of  his 
retreat,  and  the  ardour  of  his  religious  passion,  had 
exhausted  his  last  reserve  of  strength.  He  could 
not  read  for  long  together — after  a  very  little  while 
the  collection  of  his  thoughts  caused  him  a  terrible 
headache,  and  the  writing  of  the  shortest  page  was 
painful.  "  Comme  il  ne  pouvoit  dans  cet  estat  ny 
lire  ny  escrire,  il  estoit  contraint  de  demeurer  a  rien 
faire  et  de  s'aller  promener,  sans  pouvoir  penser  a 
rien  qui  eust  de  la  suite."  The  time  came  when  he 
could  not  walk,  when  he  could  no  longer  go  from 
church  to  church,  or  visit  his  poor  pensioners ;  when 
a  nervous  constriction  of  the  throat  again  made  the 
swallowing  a  cup  of  broth  a  long  and  wearisome 
process. 

It  is,  perhaps,  idle  to  ask  ourselves  now-a-days 
what  was  the  malady  that  carried  Pascal  off  in  the 
flower  of  his  age  on  the  eve  of  a  thinker's  maturity  ? 
Evidently  many  of  the  symptoms  are  those  of 
neurasthenia.  But  a  man  does  not  die  at  barely 
nine-and-thirty  of  neurasthenia  alone.  If  we  remem- 
ber that,  despite  this  early  death,  Pascal  lived 
longer  than  his  mother  or  his  younger  sister,  it  is 
natural  to  seek  the  cause  in  one  of  those  diseases 
that  run  through  a  race.  His  passionate,  feverish 
temperament,  the  charm  that  qualified  it,  his  genius 
even,  all  point  one  way  :  Pascal's  illness  was  prob- 
ably tuberculosis.  It  appears  to  have  been  an 
ulcerous  consumption  of  the  intestines,  complicated 


96  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

by  the  many  nervous  miseries — the  languors,  the 
migraines,  the  shooting  pains,  the  faintness  and 
dizzinesses,  which  so  frequently  are  the  companions 
of  phthisis.  A  difficulty  of  speech,  a  frequent 
dysphagia,  point  also  to  an  affection  of  the  larnyx. 
And  quite  at  the  end  of  his  life — but  only  quite  at 
the  end  of  his  life — between  the  i4th  and  the  igth 
of  August,  1662,  the  scene  is  closed  by  a  violent 
cerebral  disorder,  probably  a  tubercular  menin- 
gitis 1 :  "  Le  dernier  acte  est  sanglant." 

Pascal  had  given  house-room  beneath  his  roof  to 
a  family  of  poor  persons,  whom  he  supplied  with 
lodging  and  fuel  without  exacting  any  sort  of  service 
in  return.  In  the  month  of  June  1662  one  of  the 
children  of  this  poor  household  fell  sick  of  the 
small-pox.  Pascal  himself  was  ill  with  that  languor 
and  nervous  weakness  which  kept  him  often  in  a 
state  of  death-in-life;  and  Madame  Perier,  who 
tended  him,  could  not  come  and  go  between  his 
house  and  hers  lest  she  should  carry  the  contagion 
to  her  children.  Rather  than  expose  his  poor  guests 
to  the  danger  and  discomfort  of  removal,  Pascal 
consented  to  take  up  his  abode  with  his  sister.  For 
some  time  beforehand  he  had  been  even  more  than 
usually  unwell — with  a  distaste  for  nourishment,  a 
lack  of  appetite,  which  prevented  his  taking  any 
solid  food.  But  he  said  there  was  less  danger  for 
him  than  for  the  child,  in  the  fatigue  of  a  change 

1  See  La  Maladie  de  Pascal,  par  le  Dr.  P.  Just-Navarre.     Lyon, 
1911. 


PASCAL  97 

of  lodging;  so  he  left  his  home  for  ever  on  the  29th 
of  June,  1662.  And  three  days  later  he  fell  sick  of 
that  grievous  colic  which,  after  his  death,  was  proved 
to  have  been  caused  by  a  gangrenous  peritonitis. 

Yet  the  doctors  who  visited  him  were  not  alarmed ; 
they  assured  the  anxious  sister  that  there  was  not 
the  slightest  peril — "pas  la  moindre  ombre  de 
danger  "•  —for  they  were  accustomed  to  see  in  Pascal 
a  confirmed  nervous  invalid,  whose  constant  head- 
ache, frequent  dysphagia,  occasional  paresia,  were 
distressing  symptoms,  but  not  incompatible  with 
existence.  Pascal  himself  saw  that  his  sufferings 
neared  their  close  and  bore  them  with  an  heroic 
patience  which  has  left  its  noble  print  on  the  mask 
taken  after  death  :  "  II  avait  une  patience  consom- 
mee,"  wrote  the  Pere  Beurrier  twenty  years  later, 
in  a  letter  to  Madame  Perier's  son.  He  submitted 
even  to  his  sister's  kindness,  though  that  perhaps 
was  the  ascetic's  sorest  burden.  Only,  when  she 
refused  to  let  him  be  carried  (as  he  entreated)  to  the 
Hospital  for  Incurables,  he  craved,  as  a  last  boon, 
that  some  sick  poor  man  might  share  his  room  with 
him  and  benefit  by  all  his  advantages. 

To  this  ardent  charity  he  joined  a  serenity  so 
admirable  that  it  moved  and  astonished  those  who 
waited  on  him — his  sister,  first  of  all,  who  remem- 
bered him  so  irascible  and  so  feverish.  .  .  .  His 
soul,  which  she  had  always  known  upright  and 
sincere,  delicate  and  charitable,  yet  often  blindly 
violent,  or  languidly  dejected,  seemed  at  last  to 


98  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

have  found  its  equilibrium  in  a  perfect  peace.  And 
this  peace  augmented  with  his  sufferings,  although 
they  were,  as  he  allowed,  extraordinary :  "  On  ne 
sent  pas  mon  mal,  et  on  y  sera  trompe;  mon  mal 
de  tete  a  quelque  chose  de  fort  extraordinaire.  .  .  ." 
Yet  he  never  once  complained,  and  said :  "  Do  not 
pity  me.  Is  not  suffering  the  natural  state  of  a 
Christian  ?  We  are  then  as  we  ought  always  to  be  : 
freed  from  the  claims  of  sensual  pleasure;  exempt 
from  our  passions;  delivered  from  ambition;  with- 
out avarice ;  ready  for  death !  We  have  no  other 
task  than  to  submit  ourselves,  humbly,  in  all 
patience,  to  God's  will." 

Once,  indeed,  he  murmured.  For  he  said : 
"When  I  think  that,  while  I  am  so  well  cared  for, 
there  are  an  infinity  of  sick,  poor  persons,  more  ill 
than  I,  who  lack  the  very  necessaries  of  life — oh, 
then  I  endure  a  pang  that  I  scarcely  can  support ! 
I  do  beg  you  to  let  me  see  that  one  of  them  at  least 
is  treated  as  well  as  I  !  "  Father  Beurrier,  the  Cure 
of  Saint-Etienne-du-Mont,  the  parish  in  which 
Madame  Perier's  house  was  situated,  promised  to 
discover  such  a  room-mate  for  him  so  soon  as  he 
should  return  to  his  own  house.  But  that  was  never 
to  be :  the  end  was  at  hand. 

Father  Beurrier  attended  Pascal  in  his  last  illness 
and  received  his  confession.  He  seems  to  have  been 
a  dull,  honest,  excellent  man,  neither  Jansenist  nor 
Molinist,  but  Gallican  and  in  sympathy  with  Port 
Royal.  He  knew  Pascal  as  one  of  the  authors  of 
the  Factums  to  the  Cures  of  Paris,  but  not  as  Louis 


99 

de  Montalte.  :'  Je  ne  1'ai  bien  connu  comme  auteur 
des  Lettres  au  Provincial  qu'a  sa  mort."  In  several 
conversations  with  Pascal,  he  heard  him  say  that 
for  the  last  two  years  he  had  "prudently  retired" 
from  the  arguments  of  Port  Royal  in  order  to  think 
on  his  latter  end  and  to  meditate  an  Apology  for 
true  religion.  "  He  told  me  that  he  groaned  in 
spirit  when  he  watched  the  disputes  and  divisions 
of  the  faithful,  their  quarrels  viva  voce,  their  written 
discussions,  and  the  bitter  things  they  said  mutually 
of  one  another,  which  prejudiced  that  union  and 
charity  which  should  lead  them  all  together  against 
heretics  and  infidels."  The  sincerity  of  Father 
Beurrier  is  obvious.  But  the  divisions  of  which 
Pascal  complained  and  which  he  longed  to  heal 
were  not  those  which  separated  Jesuits  and  Jansen- 
ists,  but  that  more  secret  chasm  which  had  sprung 
in  the  interior  of  Port  Royal. 

For  our  part  we  believe  that  on  that  igth  of 
August,  1662,  when  Pascal  entered  his  rest  through 
the  thorny  gates  of  a  terrible  agony,  he  thought  of 
none  of  these  things — of  neither  Jesuits  nor  Jansen- 
ists — but  only  of  Jesus  Christ,  whom  he  had  so 
fervently,  so  ardently  adored.  He  had  always  been 
more  orthodox  than  he  imagined — "cet  homme  si 
grand  en  toutes  choses  estoit  simple  comme  un 
enfant  pour  ce  qui  regarde  la  piete,"  wrote  Gilberte. 
"  II  est  mort  en  tres  bon  catholique,"  affirmed  Father 
Beurrier. 

In  a  page  of  the  Provinciates,  often  quoted 
against  Pascal,  he  had  exclaimed :  "  Je  ne  suis  pas 

H   2 


100  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

de  Port  Royal.  .  .  .  Je  suis  seul."  It  was  no  pre- 
varication, thrown  like  a  handful  of  dust  in  an 
enemy's  eyes.  Pascal  had  loved  and  served  Port 
Royal ;  but  his  nature  was  essentially  solitary.  That 
great,  passionate,  avid  soul — which  he  tried  so 
often,  so  vainly  to  satisfy  with  various  interests — 
was  too  large  to  be  contained  in  the  narrow  bounds 
of  any  chapel,  of  any  sect  or  company — "parce  que 
ce  gouffre  infini  ne  peut  etre  rempli  que  par  un  objet 
infini  et  immuable — c'est  a  dire  par  Dieu  meme."  1 


XX 

Pascal,  like  one  greater,  had  come  to  bring  not 
peace,  but  a  sword.  Yet  that  healing,  which  he  had 
longed  to  pour  in  the  wounds  of  Port  Royal,  issued 
mysteriously  from  his  tomb.  The  Jansenists  closed 
round  the  memory  of  Pascal  and,  in  an  unwritten 
pact,  agreed  to  stifle  all  echo  of  their  old  dissen- 
sions. The  great  man  was  theirs  and  theirs  alone ! 

One  of  their  first  efforts  was  to  enlighten  Father 
Beurrier.  With  a  persistence  at  once  pathetic  and 
almost  disingenuous  they  besought  him  to  say  that 
he  had  been  mistaken;  Pascal  had  never  abjured! 
There  had  been  no  rupture  with  Port  Royal !  And 
the  good  Cure  of  Saint  Etienne  wrote  to  Madame 
Perier  a  letter,  which  means  as  much  as  letters  mean 
addressed  to  a  great  man's  grieving  relatives. 

The  Jesuits  and  their  friends  were  no  less  ardent, 
no  less  aggressive.  Father  Rapin  thundered  against 

1  Pcnsee  425. 


PASCAL  101 

Beurrier :  "  Qu'il  savait  peu  son  metier,  de  laisser 
mourir  un  si  grand  calomniateur  apres  tant  d'im- 
postures  et  de  faussetes — apres  avoir  vole  1'honneur 
de  son  prochain — sans  lui  parler  de  satisfaction,  en 
lui  administrant  les  derniers  sacrements."  But  the 
more  wily  of  the  ultramontanes  adopted  their  old 
adversary.  The  Archbishop  of  Paris  sent  for  Beur- 
rier and  desired  him  to  write  and  sign  a  statement 
of  Pascal's  complete  submission  to  the  Church ;  and 
the  worthy  Cure  wrote  that  his  penitent  had  died  "  en 
tres  bon  catholique,  apres  avoir  recu  les  sacrements, 
dans  une  grande  soumission  a  TEglise  et  a  Notre 
Saint-Pere  le  Pape."  This  declaration,  which  was 
to  have  been  kept  entirely  secret  save  from  the  nuns 
of  Port  Royal,  the  Archbishop  immediately  sent  to 
Rome,  and  spread  abroad  as  testimony  of  a  retracta- 
tion in  extremis.  The  Jansenists  angrily  retorted 
with  harsh  and  eager  eloquence.  The  fear  of  losing 
him  confirmed  them  in  their  allegiance  to  their  man 
of  genius,  and  doubtless  determined  the  subsequent 
publication  of  the  Pensees.  Pascal  had  died  on 
the  eve  of  a  schism  from  the  Church  and  a  secession 
from  Port  Royal ;  and  either  claimed  his  memory 
as  a  relic  to  be  treasured ! 

While  the  storm  raged,  the  Cure  of  Saint-Etienne 
buried  himself  in  his  presbytery  and  confided  to  a 
scrap  of  paper,  which  he  locked  into  his  table- 
drawer  :  "  I  wrote  that  which  I  wrote, — Quod 
scripsi,  scripsi"  He  had  written  of  Pascal's  retire- 
ment from  Port  Royal.  He  had  never  written : 
Retractation. 


II 
FENELON  AND    HIS   FLOCK 

"  Son  petit  troupeau  choisi,  dont  il  etait  le  coeur,  1'ame, 
la  vie  et  1'oracle." — SAINT-SIMON. 

"  Rien  n'est  si  noble,  si  de'licat,  si  grand,  si  hero'ique, 
que  le  coeur  d'un  vrai  chretien." — FENELON,  Lettres 
Spirituelles. 


Ftnelon.     Par  JULES  LEMA!TRE,  de  1'Academie  Franchise.     Artheine 
Fayard.     1910. 

Apologie pour  Ftfnelon.    Par  HENRI  BREMOND.     Perrin.     igio. 
Fenelon  :  Etude s  Historiques.     Par  E.  GRISELLE.     Hachette.     1911. 
Ftnelon.     Par  PAUL  JANET.     Hachette  (Grands  Ecrivains  Franc.ais). 

1905. 
Bossuet.    Par  ALFRED  REBELLIAU.      Hachette    (Grands    Ecrivains 

Franc.ais).     1900. 
Fenelon  et  Madame  Guyon.     Documents  nouveaux  et   inedits,  par 

M.  MAURICE  MASSON.     Hachette.    1907. 
A  Short  and  Easy  Method  of  Prayer.    Translated  from  the  French  of 

Madame  Guyon.    Allenson.     1907. 
Histoire  de  Fenelon.    Par  le  CARDINAL  DE  BAUSSET. 
Works  and  Correspondence  of  FENELON,  SAINT-SIMON,  RACINE, 

D'AGUESSEAU,  and  MADAME  DE  MAINTENON,  MADAME 

GUYON,  etc. 


II 

FENELON   AND    HIS    FLOCK 

"  Son  petit  troupeau  choisi,  dont  il  dtait  le  coeur,  1'ame,  la  vie 
et  1'oracle." — SAINT-SIMON,  t.  xi.  ch.  xxii. 

TOWARDS  the  fortieth  year  of  Louis  XIV,  in  all 
the  new  perfection  and  grandeur  of  Versailles,  a 
change  began  to  steal  over  the  spirit  of  the  French 
ideal,  as  though  the  nation,  like  the  King,  had 
reached  the  farther  side  of  youth;  while  the  gather- 
ing years  brought  out  in  the  brilliant  Roi-Soleil  an 
unsuspected  likeness  to  his  melancholy  father.  In 
that  solid  classic  literature  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, a  new  note  began  to  sound,  plaintive,  romantic. 
La  Fontaine,  summing  up  his  pleasures,  finds  one 
dearer  than  them  all — reaches  beyond  all  customary 
delights — 

Jusqu'au  sombre  plaisir  d'un  coeur  me'lancolique — 

as,  in  a  solitude  more  pleasant  than  the  Court, 

— Solitude,  oil  je  trouve  une  douceur  secrete, — 

he  cherishes  a  melancholy  heart.  .  .  . 

Here  and  there,  already,  in  the  poetry,  the  prose, 
and  especially  in  the  private  correspondence  of 
those  times,  a  chime  rings  out,  a  peal  of  haunt- 
ing bells,  different  from  the  official  music  of  fife 
and  trumpet.  There  is  a  sense  of  retreat  and 


106  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

recollection,  best  expressed  in  three  French  words : 
Recueillement,  Intimite,  Sagesse.  Although  the 
King  destroyed  (as  invidious  to  religion  and  society) 
the  solitudes  of  Port  Royal,  within  a  footstep  of  his 
throne-room  such  a  solitude  arose,  but  interior ;  and 
in  those  dazzling  galleries  of  mirrors,  a  new  desire 
awoke  for  something  deep,  essential,  aloof.  In 
coteries  and  corners,  a  few  chosen  friends  confided 
to  each  other  their  delight  in  an  honest  mystery, 
and  dreamed  together  of  the  spiritual  life.  Persons 
occupied  with  great  affairs  met  in  a  new  ideal 
secretly,  as  though  it  were  a  catacomb.  Their  lives 
and  what  is  left  of  their  spiritual  letters  avoided 
publicity,  attained  it  by  accident,  and  their  works 
remain  a  classic — but  a  classic  rarely  opened.  Their 
genius  is  full  of  a  dreamy  languor,  as  quiet,  as  un- 
resisting, as  the  fall  of  autumn  leaves  on  windless 
afternoons ;  their  minds  are  singularly  pure  and  vast, 
like  the  wide  grey  views  from  terraced  balustrades 
which  command  a  great  stretch  of  country  :  and  yet, 
with  all  this  largeness,  their  memories  exhale  a 
subtle  spirit  of  suffering,  as  though  we  trod  verbena 
underfoot.  It  is  the  melancholy  of  renunciation,  or, 
as  Fenelon  would  say,  "  un  Amen  continuel  au  fond 
du  cceur." 

No  less  than  great  calamities,  the  tediousness  of 
system  drives  inwards  the  souls  of  men  and  en- 
courages a  mystical  religion.  Not  Rome  itself — not 
the  monotonous  magnificent  tedium  of  the  Roman 
Empire — could  equal  the  ennui  of  Versailles.  A 


107 

life  of  constant  ceremony  without  retirement  pro- 
vokes such  a  sense  of  arid  forsakenness  as  no  mere 
lonesomeness  can  attain.  There  is  a  sort  of  peace 
in  solitude.  Let  us  read  the  letters  of  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  the  memoirs  of  Saint-Simon,  in  order  to 
plumb  such  an  abyss  of  weariness  as  no  man  or 
woman  could  endure  without  an  inward  refuge. 

What  was  Versailles  ?  A  palace  without  a  capital, 
self-centred;  a  monument  unfinished,  whose  orna- 
ments were  rising  day  by  day.  At  the  bidding  of  the 
King,  a  new  city  grew  and  budded  round  the  palace, 
like  that  city  of  Salente,  which  Mentor  was  to  visit 
with  his  pupil,  Telemaque — 

"  Cetait  une  ville  naissante,  semblable  a  une 
jeune  plante.  Chaque  jour,  chaque  heure  elle 
croissait  avec  magnificence,  a  chaque  moment  qu'on 
la  voit  on  y  trouve  un  nouvel  eclat.  Toute  la  cote 
retentissait  des  cris  des  ouvriers  et  des  coups  de 
marteau ;  les  pierres  etaient  suspendues  en  1'air  avec 
des  cordes,  et  le  roi  Idomenee,  donnant  partout  les 
ordres  lui-meme,  faisait  avancer  les  ouvrages  avec 
une  incroyable  diligence." 

There  is  a  singular  melancholy  which  is  endemic 
in  new  quarters ;  nothing  roots  there ;  no  associations 
have  had  time  to  form :  all  is  recent,  unripe,  jejune 
and  rigid.  Towards  1682,  when  first  the  Court  came 
to  dwell  in  the  unfinished  marvel  of  its  palace,  Ver- 
sailles was  a  new  quarter,  like  that  vast  suburb  of 
recent  Rome  which  appears  a  desert  beside  the  ruins 
of  antiquity.  The  light  white  plaster-dust  eddied 


108  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

and  drifted  in  those  symmetrical  streets  and  pow- 
dered the  branches  of  the  spindly  trees  beginning 
to  take  root  along  its  pompous  avenues.  Thousands 
of  men  were  toiling  at  Marly  to  raise  the  waters  of 
the  Seine  and  flood  the  new  canals  and  fountains. 
And  the  fresh  walls  glittered  white  in  the  flat 
country-side.  The  courtiers,  incessantly  hurrying 
down  the  corridors  of  the  palace,  were,  like  the 
building  itself,  new  to  the  place ;  detached  from  their 
families  and  occupations,  they  stood  there  on  view, 
like  cut  flowers  in  sand,  drawing  no  nourishment 
from  their  divided  roots.  His  Majesty's  pleasure 
was  their  one  affair.  He  expected  them  to  pay  him 
the  respect  of  their  attendance,  and  could  blight  any 
man's  future  with  the  phrase,  "  C'est  un  homme  que 
je  ne  vois  jamais." 

Therefore  the  throng  of  his  satellites  crowded 
round  him,  drifting  from  corridor  to  corridor, 
according  to  the  rumour  of  his  passage.  Behold 
them,  in  defiance  of  catarrh  and  toothache,  pacing 
the  windy  gardens  through  blustering  March  and 
damp  October,  for  the  King  (sole  of  his  Court)  was 
insensible  to  weather  and  happiest  out  of  doors ;  yet 
should  he  imagine  himself  to  be  amused  or  occupied 
within,  there  they  are  again,  mute  and  smiling, 
standing  elegantly  in  decorative  groups  through 
endless  afternoons,  while  His  Majesty  shuffles  his 
cards  or  appears  engrossed  at  his  writing-table. 
Hurrying  hither  and  thither,  or  wearily  dawdling, 
in  the  dazed  and  purposeless  fatigue  of  dumb 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK       109 

supernumeraries,  these  persons  learned  in  a  hard 
school  the  value  of  solitude,  of  nature,  of  independ- 
ence, and  prepared  the  Romantic  spirit  of  a  succeed- 
ing age.  Madame  de  Maintenon,  passing  her  life 
among  them,  understands  and  murmurs — 

"  II  n'y  a  rien  de  pareil  a  Pennui  qui  les  devore  !  " 
'  You  think  you  are  dull  at  school,"  she  says  to  her 
young  pensioners  at  Saint-Cyr.  "  Contrast  your 
liberty  with  our  life  at  Court !  When  the  King  is 
in  my  room  I  keep  at  a  respectful  distance;  if  he 
be  occupied,  no  one  speaks.  If  you  were  in  my 
place,  in  my  chamber  (which  is  the  most  privileged 
circle  of  the  Court),  during  a  great  part  of  your  life, 
silent  and  motionless,  you  would  be  more  than  dull. 
I  tell  you,  you  would  burst !  Vous  -petilleriez  !  " 

In  this  atmosphere  of  grandeur  and  monotony 
there  were  minds  that  aspired  to  a  supersensual 
sphere;  in  the  comfortless  splendour  of  Versailles 
there  were  men  who  remembered  the  life  of  Nature 
and  hankered  after  their  country  home — men  who, 
like  Fenelon,  would  write,  in  flat  Versailles,  an  ode 
in  praise  of  distant  mountain-tops — who,  like 
Racine,  would  murmur,  in  the  alleys  of  the  Park— 

"  Quand  elle  est  en  liberte' 
La  Nature  est  inimitable " 

Among  the  wars  and  rumours  of  wars,  there  were 
men  who  dared  to  dream  of  peace ;  and,  among  the 
"  glittering  beings  of  Versailles  "  (as  Arthur  Young 
was  to  call  them),  certain  wise  and  tender  hearts 
recalled  the  miserable  condition  of  the  poor.  There 


110  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

was  La  Bruyere,  there  was  Racine;  above  all,  there 
was  Fenelon. 

The  inner  life,  the  love  of  solitude,  a  passionate 
pity  for  the  poor,  the  sense  of  Nature,  an  admiration 
for  mountain  scenery — these  are  scattered  traits 
which,  sixty  years  later,  Rousseau  shall  find,  gather- 
ing from  these  dropped  seeds  the  sheaves  of  an 
ample  harvest.  Those  days  are  still  far  off,  and 
we  must  not  exaggerate  the  dawning  romantic 
tendency  in  Fenelon.  But,  discerning  it,  we  find  it 
easy  to  understand  why  the  idealists  of  the  later 
eighteenth  century  claimed  an  ancestor  in  the  author 
of  "  Telemaque."  The  good  archbishop,  seeking  in 
person  a  farmer's  strayed  or  stolen  cow  and  bringing 
it  home  at  nightfall  to  its  vacant  stable;  or  binding 
the  wounds  of  his  enemies  on  the  field  of  Mal- 
plaquet;  or  emptying  his  granaries  to  feed  the  poor 
—is  an  "homme  sensible"  of  the  sort  dear  to 
Rousseau  and  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre.  No  age 
comes  into  being  at  once,  complete  and  perfect.  In 
the  zenith  of  the  classic  reign  something,  still  new 
and  frail,  was  born  into  the  land  of  France — less 
solid  and  brilliant  than  the  Elder  Order — a  spirit 
of  compassion,  grace,  and  solitude,  still  ignorant  of 
its  aim,  seeking  Infinity,  vaguely,  not  without  hope. 


Fenelon  at  Court  had  one  immense  advantage. 
He  was  no  bourgeois,  but  a  gentleman,  a  Gascon 


FENELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK        111 

cadet  with  many  quarters  in  his  scutcheon  which  did 
not  plenish  an  empty  purse.  We  know  little  of  his 
childhood,  save  that  it  was  spent  in  Perigord,  in  the 
old  castle  of  Fenelon,  where  he  was  born  in  1651. 
The  castle  still  exists — great  romantic  towers,  vast 
and  formidable  walls,  crowning  a  summit  that  rises 
sheer  from  the  banks  of  the  Dordogne — at  this  point 
a  considerable  river.  Behind  swell  and  rise  those 
hills  of  Perigord  which  Fenelon  was  to  celebrate  in 
the  first  French  ode  (I  think)  on  mountain  scenery — 

Montagnes  de  qui  1'audace 

Va  porter  jusques  aux  cieux 
Un  front  d'eternelle  glace  .  .  . 
.  .  .  Vos  sommets  sont  des  campagnes 
Qui  portent  d'autres  montagnes. 

Fenelon  (who  sang  so  truthfully  the  charms  of  these 
high  plateaus  where  the  flocks  feed  and  stray,  where 
the  grass  is  full  of  flowers,  where  by  every  stream 
a  great  lime-tree  springs) — Fenelon  must  have 
wandered  there  often  enough  with  the  tribe  of  his 
brothers  and  sisters.  He  never  lost  his  taste  for  a 
"  beau  desert "  (it  must  have  seemed  an  inexplicable 
taste  to  the  formal  seventeenth  century),  and  in 
his  Dialogue  des  Moris  one  of  his  personages 
remarks — 

"  N'admirez-vous  pas  ces  ruisseaux  qui  tombent 
des  montagnes?  Ces  rochers  escarpes  et  en  partie 
couverts  de  mousse?  Ces  vieux  arbres,  qui  parais- 
sent  aussi  anciens  que  la  terre  ou  ils  sont  plantes? 
La  Nature  a  id  je  ne  sais  quoi  de  brut  qui  -plait,  et 
qui  fait  rever  agreablement" 


112  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Fenelon  was  the  second  son  of  his  father's  second 
marriage;  he  had  fourteen  brothers  and  sisters. 
Their  house,  which  dated  from  the  tenth  century, 
was  so  illustrious  and  so  poor  that  more  than  one  of 
these  children  was  destined  to  find  a  refuge  in  the 
Church :  the  pursuit  of  arms,  the  charges  of  the 
Court,  the  Church  were  the  principal  issues  open  to 
its  sons.  But  the  young  Fenelons  who  took  orders 
were  curiously  different  to  our  idea  of  a  French 
abbe  under  Louis  XIV  :  one  of  them  died  a  mis- 
sionary in  Canada,  while  our  Fenelon  dreamed  of 
evangelising  the  countries  of  the  East, — (the  Call  of 
the  East,  another  romantic  sentiment !  It  appears 
as  if  Fenelon  had  improvised  them  all).  :'Je  me 
sens  transporte  dans  ces  beaux  lieux  et  parmi  ces 
ruines  precieuses,  pour  y  recueillir,  avec  les  plus 
curieux  monuments,  1'esprit  meme  de  Tantiquite." 
So  runs  an  early  letter  in  which  the  fervour  of  the 
missionary  rivals  with  the  passionate  curiosity  of  the 
antiquary.  The  Church  was  to  employ  his  apostolic 
ardours  nearer  home. 

Fenelon's  father  died  when  the  child  was  twelve 
years  old.  The  inventory  of  his  estate  has  recently 
been  found — pathetic  record  of  worn  and  faded 
glories :  great  tapestries  and  hangings  from  the 
immense  banqueting-hall,  "fort  usees,"  "rapie- 
cees";  three-and-thirty  half-length  ancestral  por- 
traits, "  representant  des  illustres";  a  few  stools, 
"  uses  " ;  a  great  old  press  for  keeping  preserves  and 
stores,  "  ou  il  n'y  a  plus  de  confitures."  Tables, 


FENELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK        113 

chests,  and  velvet-cushioned  chairs,  and  great 
carpets,  and  purple  silk  hangings,  and  silver  candle- 
sticks— all  "  uses,  fort  uses,  uses  et  rompus."  Even 
in  the  stables  the  horses  are  of  this  sort :  of  the  two 
coach-horses,  twelve  years  old,  one  is  blind;  and 
there  is,  beside,  a  one-eyed  mare,  another  with  a 
sprained  shoulder,  and  a  very  old  sorrel  pony  "  qui 
sert  aux  enfants  " — "  fort  vieux  "  !  x  And  Fenelon' s 
portion  in  this  estate  was  naturally  small.  "  Fenelon 
etait  un  homme  de  qualite  qui  n'avait  rien,"  observed 
Saint-Simon.  He  had,  at  any  rate,  two  uncles  :  one 
of  them,  Bishop  of  Sarlat;  the  other,  the  Marquis  de 
Fenelon — once  a  soldier,  next  a  saint — was  the 
friend  and  lay  helper  of  M.  Olier,  the  founder  of 
the  Order  of  Saint  Sulpice.  In  the  house  of  the 
Marquis  of  Fenelon,  the  charming,  chivalrous, 
Quixotic  young  nephew  from  Perigord  came  into 
contact  with  the  spirit  of  Paris. 

The  Marquis  of  Fenelon,  before  his  sudden  con- 
version, had  been  a  famous  duellist.  His  influence 
could  only  enforce  in  his  nephew  that  quick  sense 
of  honour,  that  instinct  of  "  Noblesse  oblige  "  which 
ran  in  his  blood,  and  which  no  religion  could  subdue. 
He  felt  the  value  and  the  responsibilities  of  birth 
and  breeding.  It  lay  in  his  nature  to  protect  rather 
than  to  appeal;  to  defend,  to  redress,  to  maintain, 
rather  than  to  consider  his  own  advantage.  He  was 
mild,  but  not  meek.  He  was  gentle,  but  authori- 

1  F.  Strowski,  "  Fenelon  et  son  pays,"  Revue  de  Fribourg,  Juillet 
Aotit,  1903. 


114  THE  FRENCH   IDEAL 

tative.  He  was  supple,  and  even  insinuating,  and 
yet  he  was  brave  to  temerity,  and  (as  Madame  de 
Maintenon  remarked)  the  frankest  of  men. 

Never  servile,  like  Bossuet,  who  (the  jest  ran)  had 
a  joint  too  many  in  his  spine  when  he  passed  from 
the  presence  of  the  altar  to  the  presence  of  the 
throne,  or  who — as  another  contemporary  noted— 
"manque  d'os";  never  absent-minded  like  the 
dreamy  scholar  Racine,  who  asked  the  King  and 
Madame  de  Maintenon  their  opinion  of  Scarron's' 
overrated  works;  Fenelon,  in  every  situation,  knew 
what  was  the  course  a  gentleman  should  pursue. 
This  accident  of  a  scutcheon  was  in  his  case  a 
possession  so  essential,  and  coloured  so  deeply  all 
his  views  of  life,  that  we  can  no  more  pass  it  over 
than  leave  out  his  quality  of  Churchman.  When 
the  eighteenth  century  adopted  Fenelon  for  its 
father,  it  chose  to  forget  the  feudal  and  theocratic 
element  in  all  his  projects  of  reform.  True,  he 
turned  in  revolt  from  the  oppression  of  the  poor; 
true,  he  loved  to  contemplate  a  France  renewed,  in 
which  the  King  should  be  much  less,  the  people 
something  more;  but  it  was  not  the  France  of  the 
Revolution  that  he  foresaw,  but  a  State  much  like 
the  pious,  prosperous  Jesuit  missions  in  Paraguay 
(for  they  were  prosperous  then) :  a  kingdom  in  which 
monarch,  noble,  priest  should  diffuse  an  immense, 
yet  tempered,  liberty. 

From   the  house   of  his  uncle,  the   Marquis  of 
Fenelon,  the  young  ecclesiastic  entered  the  seminary 


FJSNELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK       115 

of  Saint-Sulpice — which  discovered  a  middle  path 
between  the  worldly  pliableness  of  the  Jesuits  and 
the  rigid  pessimism  of  Port  Royal.  It  is  the  glory 
of  Saint-Sulpice  (if  we  take  our  stand  on  the  pro- 
faner  slopes  of  Parnassus)  that  in  two  hundred 
years  it  has  produced,  first  a  Fenelon,  then  a  Renan, 
minds  not  dissimilar  in  their  romantic  elegance,  their 
solid  and  modest  learning,  their  radiant  philosophy, 
as  also  in  something  detached,  ethereal,  exquisite, 
which  makes  them  appear  spirits  elect,  speaking  to 
the  chosen  few,  wjbile  the  deep  heart  in  either  is 
filled  with  a  poignant  pity  for  the  multitude. 
Fenelon  had,  moreover,  this  further  advantage,  that 
he  was  a  saint.  If  Rome  had  not  reproached  him, 
she  must  have  canonised  him.  The  Sulpician 
Fathers  grounded  Fenelon  solidly  on  the  classics 
—a  term  which,  in  France,  nearly  always  means  the 
Latin  classics — but  Fenelon,  like  Racine,  was  a  son 
of  Hellas.  His  mellow,  silvery  phrase,  gracious, 
stript  and  lucid,  is  at  once  noble  and  familiar;  it 
has  no  trace  of  the  Roman  emphasis,  the  Roman 
redundance.  Without  Homer,  could  he  have  written 
:<  Telemaque  "  ?  Without  Plato,  we  cannot  imagine 
the  Christianity  of  this  unusual  archbishop. 

On  leaving  Saint-Sulpice,  Fenelon  was  appointed 
Superior  of  the  Nouvelles-Catholiques,  a  community 
for  the  reception  of  young  Huguenot  ladies  con- 
verted to  Rome — sometimes  from  conviction  and 
frequently  by  force.  The  gracious  and  charming 
Fenelon  (at  that  time  twenty-seven  years  of  age) 


I   2 


116  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

was  ever  a  favourite  of  the  Goddess  Peitho;  one  of 
his  rules  of  life  was  "  Ne  payez  d'autorite  que 
lorsque  la  persuasion  manque  !  "  Yet  all  his  long, 
lean  person  was  instinct  with  authority,  with  a  tender 
domination,  a  prestige  hard  to  withstand.  He 
moved  light  and  swift  in  his  ecclesiastical  dress,  a 
tall,  thin  Abbe,  with  dark  hair  waving  on  the  long 
neck  and  high  forehead ;  something  secret,  kind  and 
pure  pierced  his  aquiline  visage,  and  eyes — eyes 
from  which  (avers  Saint-Simon,  who  did  not  love 
him), 

"fire  and  mind  rushed  as  in  a  torrent,  with  an 
expression  such  as  I  have  never  seen  the  like  of  in 
any  other  visage,  so  aptly  did  it  mingle  grave  and 
gay,  the  earnest  and  the  gallant,  in  a  look  which 
would  have  suited  equally  a  great  lord,  a  bishop,  or 
a  learned  doctor;  the  whole  person  of  the  man  was 
radiant  with  thought,  wit,  and  a  sober  grace  which 
blent  in  an  air  so  unutterably  noble  that  it  was  with 
an  effort  I  took  my  glance  from  his  face." 

Neither  platitude  nor  candour  lurked  in  his  fresh 
unworldliness :  he  was  other-worldly  rather  than 
unworldly.  He  was  disinterested,  because  he  cared 
so  little  for  anything  you  could  offer  him,  were  you 
Majesty  itself  :  unless,  indeed,  you  chose  to  con- 
secrate to  him  the  very  inmost  marrow  of  your  heart 
and  soul.  Try  to  disgrace  such  a  man,  he  soared  out 
of  your  reach  and  shed  a  glory  elsewhere — not  on 
you  !  That  was  one  reason,  doubtless,  why  the  King 
disliked  him.  Louis  preferred  men  whom  he  could 


FENELON 


FfiNELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK       117 

make  or  mar.  The  Duke  de  Beauvilliers  alone 
among  his  ministers  was  of  noble  birth.  A  Fouquet 
or  a  Colbert  was  his  creation  and  his  creature;  but 
a  Fenelon  had  roots  of  his  own,  and  flowered  aloof. 
At  his  uncle's  house  this  young  Churchman 
mingled  intimately  with  a  choice  society,  with  the 
Duke  and  Duchess  of  Beauvilliers,  and  with  Bos- 
suet,  Bishop  of  Meaux :  three  persons  whose  lives 
were  destined  to  remain  inextricably  intertwined 
with  his.  Bossuet  showed  him  great  affection; 
Fenelon  sat  at  the  Bishop's  feet  in  young  enthu- 
siasm. But  with  Paul  de  Beauvilliers,  a  man  near 
his  own  age,  he  contracted  a  closer  friendship  and 
one  that  was  destined  to  endure  throughout  their 
lives. 


II 

The  Duke  of  Beauvilliers  had  married  Colbert's 
second  daughter,  whose  sisters  were  the  Duchess  of 
Chevreuse  and  the  Duchess  of  Mortemart.  When- 
ever, in  Fenelon's  correspondence,  we  read  the 
abbreviation  le  b.  d.  (or  le  B.  /).),  we  may  be  sure 
that  the  "Bon  Due"  is  Paul  de  Beauvilliers;  he 
is  the  Philocles  of  Telemaque  :  "  1'homme  neces- 
saire,"  generous  and  patient,  indifferent  to  favour  or 
disgrace,  harsh  indeed,  "  sec  et  austere,"  flattering 
no  one,  not  even  the  King.  "  II  n'aime  que  la  verite 
et  vous,"  says  Mentor  to  the  monarch,  "  et  vous  aime 
mieux  que  vous  ne  savez  vous  aimer."  Doubtless 


118  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Louis  felt  the  quality  of  this  disinterested  devotion, 
for  he  put  his  trust  in  Beauvilliers,  in  accordance 
with  that  excellent  instinct  which  redeemed  in  him 
a  mind  merely  serious  and  mediocre.  One  day,  at 
the  camp  in  Flanders,  when  the  young  courtiers  were 
jesting  round  the  King's  tent  door,  they  saw  the 
Duke  stalking  on  in  front,  all  by  himself,  stiff  and 
prim  :  "  There  goes  the  Duke  of  Beauvilliers,  saying 
his  prayers  !  "  The  King  overheard  them,  and  said, 
in  a  tone  which  ensured  a  long  term  of  respect,  "  Ay, 
there  goes  the  Duke  of  Beauvilliers,  one  of  the 
sagest  and  wisest  men  in  my  court  and  kingdom." 

Destined  to  the  Church,  a  Duke  against  his  will 
(owing  to  the  death  of  two  elder  brothers),  Beau- 
villiers retained  much  of  the  mind  and  manners  of 
an  ecclesiastic.  His  character  was  secret  and  cir- 
cumspect, enamoured  of  privacy,  incapable  of  feign- 
ing. It  says  much  for  King  Louis  that  his  peculiar 
confidant  was  a  man  who  never  courted  a  Royal 
mistress  nor  renounced  a  friend  in  disgrace. 

He  was  practical,  liberal,  intelligent  and  dull; 
there  have  been  in  modern  England  several  Low- 
Church  peers  and  statesmen  not  unlike  the  Duke  of 
Beauvilliers.  A  tall  man,  angular  and  lean,  with  a 
long,  high-coloured  face,  small,  piercing  eyes,  thick 
lips  and  a  great  hook  nose,  the  ice  of  his  aspect 
would  suddenly  melt  in  the  kindest  of  smiles.  Pre- 
cise and  prudent,  his  opinion  was  valuable,  though 
his  cleverness  was  nothing  more  than  what  sagacity 
and  experience  could  furnish.  He  had,  however, 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK       119 

one  quality  which  was  a  sort  of  genius — indeed, 
rarer  than  genius  at  the  Court  of  King  Louis — and 
that  was  a  detachment  from  his  own  interests  so 
absolute  as  to  give  him  a  large  outlook  which  greater 
talents  lacked.  He  was  solidly  humble.  He  was 
infinitely  respected,  stiff,  and  a  little  ridiculous. 
The  Duke  was  not  popular — for  something  con- 
strained, something  solitary  and  scrupulous  in  the 
way  of  him,  hid  the  real  generosity,  the  earnest 
faithfulness  of  a  deep,  if  narrow,  heart.  He  was  no 
general  lover.  "  Mais  ce  qu'il  aimait"  (wrote  Saint- 
Simon)  "il  I'aimoit  bien,  pourvu  qu'il  put  aussi 
1'estimer." 

The  Duchess  was  a  lady  of  no  common  ugliness, 
with  whom  he  lived  in  the  closest  union,  and  by 
whom  he  had  ten  children.  Never  was  a  happier 
couple.  Never  was  a  more  intimate  quartette  than 
the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Beauvilliers,  and  their 
sister  and  brother-in-law,  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of 
Chevreuse.  The  plain-featured  Duchess  of  Beau- 
villiers was  a  woman  of  wit  and  taste;  her  dress,  her 
furniture,  her  table,  her  conversation,  were  delight- 
ful. She  would  have  shone  in  society,  but  so  ten- 
derly did  she  espouse  her  husband's  will,  that  she 
lived  at  Versailles  the  life  of  a  hermit,  in  so  far  as 
that  was  compatible  with  her  duties  at  Court ;  till  at 
length  she  caught  a  veneer  of  the  Duke's  starchy 
simplicity,  which  spoiled  her  natural  grace,  at  least 
for  strangers. 

Her  elder  sister  had  married  the  Duke  of  Chev- 


120  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

reuse.  It  was  said  at  Court  that  while  on  every 
possible  subject  the  two  Dukes  thought  the  same 
thought,  and  said  the  same  words,  Beauvilliers  had 
a  good  angel  of  his  own,  who  kept  him  from  doing 
the  same  deeds  as  his  brother-in-law.  Chevreuse 
was  one  of  those  men  who  never  say  a  foolish  thing 
and  seldom  do  a  wise  one.  He  was  dreamy  and 
eloquent.  The  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Chevreuse 
were  loved,  liked,  revelled  in,  where  the  Duke  and 
Duchess  of  Beauvilliers  were  just  esteemed.  Chev- 
reuse was  a  fine,  handsome  man,  stately  in  figure  and 
deliberate  in  address,  not  without  a  hint  of  his 
brother-in-law's  starchiness  (at  least  on  formal 
occasions),  but  in  private  conversation  he  held  his 
audience  under  a  charm,  and  they  saw  the  brilliant 
chimerical  idealist  he  was.  His  father,  the  Duke 
of  Luynes,  had  sent  him  to  school  at  Port  Royal, 
and,  though  he  had  long  since  abandoned  the  doc- 
trines, he  kept  the  solid  culture  and  the  staunch, 
plain  sincerity  of  the  Jansenists,  but  mingled  them 
quaintly  with  a  native  unreasonableness  of  his  own. 
The  love  of  solitude  haunted  him  like  a  passion 
— to  a  degree  which  Saint-Simon  frankly  calls 
"  indecent " — and  when  commanded  on  a  Royal 
visit  to  Marly,  or  when  on  duty  at  Versailles,  he 
would  dreamily  steal  away  to  his  chateau  of  Dam- 
pierre,  and  be  found  there,  oblivious  of  time  and 
place,  among  the  books  in  his  library,  happier  than 
the  King.  His  unpunctuality  led  him  into  grotesque 
adventures.  He  never  could  remember  when  to  get 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK       121 

up  or  when  to  go  to  bed.  With  a  book  in  his  hand, 
he  forgot  the  flight  of  time,  and  while  he  read  in  his 
study,  his  coach  and  horses,  ordered  to  await  his 
pleasure,  would  stand  at  his  door  for  ten  hours  at  a 
stretch.  His  comic  absent-mindedness  atoned  to  the 
public  for  the  serious  excellence  of  his  learning, 
and  made  him  a  popular  figure  with  courtiers  who 
resented  the  pedantry  of  Beauvilliers.  The  exact 
Beauvilliers  saw  the  world  as  it  is,  in  the  cold  day- 
light of  experience;  M.  de  Chevreuse  was  all  wit, 
sentiment,  instinct,  Utopia.  No  man  had  so  many 
reasons  and  theories,  which,  starting  from  the  most 
specious  premises,  landed  his  bewildered  inter- 
locutors in  Heaven  knows  what  land  of  Kennaqu- 
hair,  without  an  apparent  flaw  in  their  logic.  His 
words  were  all  flickering  and  shimmering  with  the 
light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land.  "  II  voyoit  tout 
en  blanc,"  wrote  Saint-Simon,  "  et  en  pleine  espe- 
rance; — son  trop  de  lumieres  1'eblouissoit  de  faux 
jours."  The  disorder  of  his  genius,  and  the  extra- 
ordinary mismanagement  of  his  private  affairs,  did 
not  prevent  him  from  being  an  able  minister.  He 
was  an  incomparable  friend,  the  cheerfullest  of  men, 
nothing  troubled  his  serenity,  and  in  the  depth  of 
calamity  he  still  thought  that  all  was  ordered  for  the 
best.  One  would  suppose  that  such  a  character  must 
clash  with  the  dour  sagacity  of  a  Beauvilliers  :  never 
was  there  such  a  union,  such  a  perfect  harmony. 
The  two  Dukes  with  their  Duchesses  lodged 
together  at  Marly,  occupied  neighbouring  apart- 


122  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

ments  in  the  palace  at  Versailles  and  had  their  town 
houses  without  the  palace  gates,  and  their  country 
houses,  so  close  together  that  their  intimacy  was 
uninterrupted.  They  saw  each  other  several  times 
a  day,  dined  in  each  other's  company,  shared  the 
same  narrow  coterie  of  pious  friends,  the  same 
exalted  religion,  the  same  political  ideas.  The 
Duchess  of  Chevreuse  was  all  sweetness  and  bright 
humour.  A  dark  handsome  creature,  far  less  clever 
than  her  sister,  but  more  considered,  more  loved, 
wherever  she  went  she  was  the  soul  of  peace  and 
union.  The  King  was  a  martinet  for  etiquette; 
before  him  neither  mistress,  wife,  nor  child  dared 
appear  in  public  (however  sick  or  sorry)  unless 
powdered,  painted,  laced  and  bejewelled;  yet  he 
received  one  lady  in  her  neglige  :  the  Duchess  of 
Chevreuse.  A  sort  of  sweet,  saintly  abandonment 
emanated  from  her  presence.  The  two  ducal 
couples,  Beauvilliers  and  Chevreuse,  unlike  and 
inseparable,  dwelt  together  in  harmony,  the  solid 
regularity  of  the  one  forming,  as  it  were,  a  musical 
bass  for  the  dreamy  arpeggios  and  cadences  of  the 
other. 

The  dinner-table  at  the  Hotel  de  Beauvilliers, 
usually  spread  for  four — the  two  Dukes,  the  two 
Duchesses — was  often  laid  for  five  or  six.  The 
youngest  daughter  of  Colbert  was  the  widowed 
Duchess  of  Mortemart.  Piquante,  frank  and 
worldly,  one  day  she  had  flung  the  world  to  the 
winds,  set  her  face  heavenwards,  aimed  at  being  the 


FfiNELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK       123 

Great  Soul,  finding  perhaps  a  pious  excitement  in 
the  frequent  prayer-meetings  of  the  Hotel  de  Beau- 
villiers.  She  sat  under  the  Abbe  de  Fenelon  with  a 
deep  devotedness.  But  the  real  Great  Soul  of  the 
little  clique  was  the  Duchess  of  Bethune-Charost,  a 
middle-aged  woman,  some  years  older  than  either 
Duke.  She  was  Fouquet's  daughter.  An  equal 
devotion  to  the  same  mystical  ideas  united  her  in  an 
inseparable  friendship  with  the  three  daughters  of 
Colbert,  the  man  who  had  ruined  her  father.  Her 
real  merit  and  ordinary  intelligence,  having  seen  the 
dupery  of  success,  had  sought  refuge  in  an  oratory. 
A  pious,  placid  woman,  she  filled  her  friends,  and 
Fenelon  among  her  friends,  with  a  vast  veneration 
for  certain  spiritual  virtues  which  haloed  the 
mediocrity  of  her  mind  and  person. 

This  pious  coterie  of  mystical  dukes  and 
duchesses  used  to  meet  at  Versailles,  in  the  little 
cabinet  of  the  Duchess  of  Beauvilliers,  "  au  coin  de 
la  petite  cheminee  de  marbre  blanc,"  or  at  one  of 
their  pleasant  country  houses  in  the  neighbouring 
woods,  at  Vaucresson,  at  Dampierre,  or  at  the 
Duchesse  de  Bethune's  place  at  Beynes.  We  can 
imagine  the  tranquil,  grey-walled  salon  (a  little  worn 
and  shabby,  as  is  the  way  of  France),  the  studious 
spiritual  scholars  and  their  wives,  grouped,  as  frag- 
ments of  steel  are  grouped  by  the  magnet,  round 
one  central  figure,  which  drew  each  and  all  with  an 
irresistible  fidelity — and  that  central  figure,  of 
course,  was  Fenelon. 


124  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

They  shared  their  secrets.  If  the  Abbe  dispensed 
to  them  the  sources  of  a  spiritual  life,  the  Dukes 
divided  with  him  their  anxieties  for  the  welfare  of 
the  kingdom.  France  was  ruined.  The  magnificent 
harmony  of  grandeur,  felicity  and  order  which  had 
glorified  France  during  the  middle  years  of  Louis 
XIV  had  now  sunk  into  the  monotonous  complaint 
of  exhausted  and  dwindling  instruments.  France  in 
1687  was  much  in  the  condition  she  was  to  know 
again  after  the  Napoleonic  wars :  depopulated, 
ruined,  discontented.  The  King's  battles  and  the 
King's  palaces  and  the  King's  debts  had  reduced 
the  nation  to  misery.  Beauvilliers  was  chief  of  the 
Council  of  Finance,  and  his  conscience  was  aghast 
at  the  extortions  which  the  Court  exacted  from  a 
country  almost  bankrupt,  in  order  to  pay  for  archi- 
tectural splendour.  This  little  group  of  would-be 
regenerators  discussed  together  many  a  project  of 
Reform.  Peace,  Retrenchment,  Pity,  were  their 
watchwords.  But  none  of  them  hoped  much  from 
the  selfish,  pompous  monarch.  Their  group  had 
weight  with  him :  they  might  secure  a  prolongation 
of  peace;  but  for  a  real  reform  they  must  look 
further  ahead.  They  were  Mystics  :  time  was  to 
them  a  thing  of  no  account;  the  present  day,  that 
which  they  prized  the  least.  They  sowed  their  seeds 
and  looked  ahead,  confident  in  the  grace  of  God. 
They  had  far  to  look.  The  heir  to  the  throne  was 
a  young  man  under  thirty,  a  handsome  clod,  sunk  in 
stupid  pleasures.  They  prayed;  they  hoped;  they 


FENELON   AND   HIS    FLOCK       125 

believed  that  in  His  own  time  the  Eternal  would 
take  pity  on  the  land  of  France  and  raise  to  the 
throne  a  new  Saint  Louis. 


Ill 

One  other  friend,  outside  this  noble  group,  had 
shared  the  confidence  of  the  young  Abbe  de  Fenelon 
and  awoke  in  his  chivalrous  nature  a  pious  enthu- 
siasm :  that  friend — some  four-and-twenty  years 
older  than  himself — was  a  man  of  the  noblest 
character,  the  highest  standing,  a  great  prelate,  an 
extraordinary  genius — that  friend  was  Bossuet, 
Bishop  of  Meaux.  He  appealed  to  the  tensest  fibres 
in  Fenelon's  nature  :  the  religious  spirit  and  the 
sense  of  artistic  excellence.  The  young  Abbe 
venerated  the  Bishop  and  admired  the  incomparable 
orator. 

Although  we  remember  him,  in  the  days  of  his 
fame  and  disenchantment,  as  a  man  reserved  and 
secret,  yet  in  his  youth  Fenelon  was  expansive, 
enthusiastic — a  true  son  of  Languedoc.  He  hung 
on  the  lips  of  his  dear  master — he  was  full  of  his 
praises;  with  his  friend  Langeron  he  hovered  con- 
stantly in  the  prelate's  society;  and  a  cynical 
observer — ("  satirique,  piquant,  difficile,  avantageux 
et  railleur,"  writes  Saint- Simon) — watched  and 
waited  as  though  there  must  be  some  deep  design 
in  the  prodigality  of  all  this  incense.  This  is  how  it 
struck  the  Abbe  Phelipeaux,  an  Angevine  priest  in 


126  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Bossuet's  service  :  "  Pendant  les  repas  et  les  pro- 
menades, Fenelon  et  Langeron  louaient  sans  cesse 
le  prelat  jusqu'  a  Ten  fatiguer.  .  .  .  Le  prelat  en 
rougissait  souvent,  leur  en  temoignait  publiquement 
son  degout,  et  les  priait  de  s'en  abstenir.  La 
Bruyere,  homme  sincere  et  naturel,  etait  outre.  II 
me  disait  quelquefois  a  1'oreille  :  '  Quel  empoison- 
ment !  Peut-on  porter  la  flatterie  a  cet  exces ! ' 
Voila,  lui  disais-je,  pour  vous  la  matiere  d'un  beau 
caractere." 

But  it  was  not  flattery.  It  was  the  first  entranced, 
enthralled  delight  of  an  ardent  young  soul  in  pre- 
sence of  its  ideal.  Bossuet  was  everything  to  the 
two  young  men — they  followed  him,  venerated  him, 
adored  him,  poked  delighted  fun  at  him,  criticised 
him  with  bated  breath,  worshipped  him  with  every 
faculty,  as  is  the  way  of  generous  undisciplined 
youth.  And  even  later,  "when  whispering  tongues 
had  poisoned  truth,"  a  certain  tenderness  and  awe 
for  the  idol  of  past  years  remained  with  Fenelon, 
melting  him  to  rash  submissions  that  could  have  no 
morrow. 

Ah,  Bossuet—  :<  Vous  etes  plein  de  f entes  par 
oil  le  sublime  echappe  de  tous  cotes"-— full  of 
chinks  and  clefts  which  let  out  the  sublime  in  all 
directions — (the  phrase  is  Langeron's) — but  had  you 
never  a  moment  of  remorse  when  in  later  years  you 
remembered  the  innocent  adoration  of  these  youths  ? 
At  first  the  Bishop  accepted  it  sweetly.  He  speaks 
of  Fenelon  with  affection  in  his  correspondence : 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK       127 

"  Enfin,  Madame,  nous  ne  perdrons  pas  M.  1'Abbe 
de  Fenelon;  vous  pourrez  en  jouir,  et  moi,  quoique 
provincial,  je  m'echapperai  quelquefois  pour  aller 
Tembrasser." 

And  it  is  probable  (so  at  least  says  M.  Jules 
Lemaitre  in  his  delightful  life  of  Fenelon)  that  it 
was  at  Bossuet's  request  that,  in  1678,  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Paris  named  the  Abbe  de  Fenelon,  at 
twenty-seven  years  of  age,  Superior  of  the  Convent 
of  Nouvelles  Catholiques. 

But  when  (after  a  mission  to  convert  the  Pro- 
testants of  Poitou)  Fenelon  returned  to  Paris,  a  few 
years  later — prominent,  eminent,  the  man  of  the 
hour — already  a  secret  jar  disturbed  the  harmony 
of  these  great  minds.  The  antagonism  of  nature 
between  Bossuet  and  Fenelon  was  too  deep  and  too 
essential  for  their  friendship  to  be  lasting  :  Bossuet, 
with  his  Hebrew  grandeur  and  his  lyric  magnifi- 
cence, yet  candid,  awkward,  tactless  and  tremen- 
dous; Fenelon,  with  his  supple  delicacy,  his  philo- 
sophic force  and  elevation,  his  independence,  his 
aristocratic  aloofness,  his  romantic  sensibility. 
Their  aims,  their  ideals  were  as  the  poles  asunder. 
Bossuet  was  essentially  a  churchman,  Fenelon 
essentially  a  mystic,  seeking  an  inner,  secret  way 
to  unite  the  life  of  man  with  the  Infinite  Life 
beyond.  Bossuet  was  a  good  Christian  rather  than 
a  saint,  and  Fenelon,  perhaps,  was  rather  a  saint 
than  an  orthodox  Christian.  Bossuet's  most  acute 
biographer,  M.  Rebelliau,  admits  that  his  great  man 


128  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

was  lacking  in  "  tact,  adresse,  sentiment  des  nuances 
et  des  distinctions  necessaires ";  Fenelon  was  ex- 
quisitely sensitive,  bound  to  suffer  by  such  a  con- 
tact; it  was  the  old  story  of  the  porcelain  vase  and 
the  brazen  pot. 

Not  only  their  feelings,  but  their  conceptions  of 
religion  were  divergent.  Bossuet  was  solid  and 
sincere,  his  faith  stood  foursquare  to  all  the  winds 
that  blow ;  and,  like  a  poet  on  his  tripos,  he  glorified 
and  transfigured  the  commonplace.  A  feeling  was 
always  more  to  him  than  an  idea,  and  an  image  truer 
than  a  notion. 

Fenelon,  on  the  contrary  (infinitely  less  admir- 
able and  abundant  in  expression),  was  a  man  who 
lived  in  relation  to  the  immense  Infinite  in  time 
and  space,  conceived  as  a  whole.  It  is  a  mistake 
to  accuse  him  of  ambition.  He  felt  the  smallness 
of  his  personal  interests,  conceiving  that  he  was 
alive  to  serve  the  Sum  and  Soul  of  things,  not 
counting  on  the  service  of  God  to  him,  either  in 
answer  to  prayer,  or  in  the  reaping  of  advantage,  in 
this  world  or  the  next.  He  had  little  of  Bossuet's 
cordial  unction  and  self-gratulation  in  the  personal 
presence  of  Christ.  After  the  first  effervescence  of 
youth  had  subsided,  his  spiritual  condition  was 
often  that  which  he  describes  as  "  une  paix  amere  et 
seche,"  a  state  not  essentially  different  from  that 
intellectual  love  of  God  which  Spinoza  expressly 
declares  to  be  beyond  emotion.  .  .  .  And  Fenelon 
also  says  :  "  On  aime  d'awtant  plus  -purement  alors 


F&NELON    AND   HIS   FLOCK      129 

qu'on  aime  sans  sentir,  comme  on  croit  avec  plus 
de  merite  lorsqu'on  croit  sans  voir."  In  his  eyes 
this  attitude  of  acquiescence,  of  acceptation,  of 
supple  adaptability  to  the  will  of  God  was,  in  truth, 
religion, — that,  and  not  imaginative  fervour,  not 
spiritual  ecstasy,  not  the  zeal  for  austerities  or  the 
zest  for  good  works. 

He  thought,  with  Dante,  "  In  la  sua  voluntade  e 
nostra  pace,"  and  his  one  prayer  was  Fiat  voluntas 
tua  ! 

Thus  these  two  great  Catholics,  both  so  admir- 
able, so  sincere,  so  fine  and  noble, — men,  too,  who 
had  begun  with  a  tender  friendliness, — were  consti- 
tuted in  such  a  way  that  the  religion  of  either 
appeared  to  the  other  an  error,  if  not  a  heresy. 

It  is  possible  that  Bossuet  may  have  felt  that 
secret  shudder*  of  the  old  who  feel  their  power 
escaping  them,  their  virtue  gone  out  of  them,  oozing 
invisibly  into  nothingness,  when  his  young  friend 
(no  longer  quite  so  young)  installed  himself  in  Paris 
—the  unconfessed  director  of  the  Court !  All  that 
Bossuet  had  let  slip  from  him — the  control  over  the 
movement  of  ideas,  the  rule  and  authority  over  those 
that  influence  the  world — all  this  had  mysteriously 
passed  into  the  keeping  of  Fenelon. 


130  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

IV 

Pedagogy  was  the  sport  and  the  science  of  the 
hour.  The  amelioration  of  a  Chosen  Few  interested 
the  society  of  Louis  Quatorze  with  a  passion  as 
vivid  and  as  deep  as  our  own  age  brings  to  bear  on 
the  improvement  of  horses.  Kings  then  had  a 
school  instead  of  a  stud.  Locke,  in  England,  was 
meditating  his  Thoughts  on  the  Education  of 
Children,  when  Fenelon  in  France  wrote  his  famous 
essay  on  the  Training  of  Girls.  In  France,  the 
question  took  a  keener  edge  from  the  fact  that  the 
secret  Queen  was  a  retired  governess,  while  the 
King  (a  man  of  serious  and  mediocre  mind, 
naturally  predisposed  to  the  regular  and  the 
grandiose)  was  ignorant — extraordinarily  ignorant 
—and  resenting  this  ignorance,  had,  for  all  the 
technique  of  training,  the  superstition  of  an  able, 
ill-instructed  man.  He  had  sense,  grace  and  judg- 
ment ;  yet  he  could  not  take  part  in  the  most  ordinary 
conversation  on  geography  or  history  without  falling 
into  some  ludicrous  mistake.  Capable  of  correct- 
ing himself,  he  would  speak  bitterly,  then,  of  his 
lack  of  grounding,  would  recall  his  childhood  spent 
with  servants'  children,  ill-tended,  untaught.  He 
had  tried  to  make  a  scholar  of  his  stupid  son,  the 
Dauphin,  by  handing  him  over  to  Bossuet  and  Mon- 
tausier.  But  perhaps  the  surest  way  of  producing 
a  Sancho  Panza  is  to  send  an  average  boy  to  the 
school  of  Don  Quixote.  Once  free  of  his  tutors, 


FENELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK      131 

the  Dauphin  never  opened  a  book.  He  was  a  dull, 
heavy,  rather  vulgar  young  man,  with  no  interests 
beyond  his  creature-comforts. 

The  King  had  produced  no  prodigy ;  but  he  con- 
tinued to  believe  in  education.  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon  was  full  of  schemes  for  the  training  of  girls. 
In  1684  she  conceived  (and  opened  in  1686,  at 
Saint-Cyr  near  Versailles)  a  college  for  young 
ladies,  poor,  but  of  noble  birth.  There  were  250 
pupils,  housed  in  a  palace  built  by  Mansart,  which 
was  situated  in  a  park  of  nearly  sixty  acres.  The 
King  named  the  candidates  and  dowered  them  when 
they  left  the  school;  their  education  was  entrusted 
to  a  community  of  thirty-six  professed  nuns  and 
twenty-four  affiliated  associates — all  noble,  and 
many  of  them  distinguished. 

This  High  School  of  Saint-Cyr  was  a  constant 
topic  of  conversation  at  the  Court :  of  all  topics  the 
most  interesting  to  Madame  de  Maintenon.;  When 
Fenelon  in  1687  began  his  career  as  an  author,  with 
a  book  on  LJ  Education  des  Filles,  the  subject 
appeared  adroitly  chosen,  although,  as  a  fact,  he 
had  been  engaged  upon  it  before  the  inception  of 
Saint-Cyr — indeed  since  1681 — the  matter  having 
been  suggested  by  his  work  among  the  Nouvelles- 
Catholiques.  He  had  written  it  less  for  fame  than 
for  friendship.  The  Duchess  of  Beauvilliers  was 
the  mother  of  eight  daughters,  and  it  was  for  her 
that  he  had  composed  the  book. 

There  is  in  U  Education  des  Filles  something 

K  2 


132  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

of  the  sweet  utility  and  modest  wisdom  of  Xeno- 
phon.  We  understand  why  the  men  of  '89  appro- 
priated Fenelon,  when  we  read  a  passage  like  the 
following,  published  ninety-nine  years  before  the 
Revolution — Fenelon  begs  his  pupils  to  speak 
gently  to  their  servants,  not  to  look  on  their  lackeys 
"  a  peu  pres  comme  des  chevaux."  He  complains— 

"  On  se  croit  d'une  autre  nature  que  les  valets ; 
on  suppose  qu'ils  sont  faits  pour  la  commodite  de 
leurs  maitres.  Tachez  de  montrer  combien  ces 
maximes  sont  contraires  a  la  modestie  pour  soi,  et 
a  rhumanite  pour  son  prochain.  Faites  entendre 
que  les  hommes  ne  sont  pas  faits  pour  etre  servis; 
que  c'est  une  erreur  brutale  de  croire  qu'il  y  ait  des 
hommes  nes  pour  flatter  la  paresse  et  1'orgueil  des 
autres;  que,  le  service  etant  etabli  contre  1'egalite 
naturelle  des  hommes,  il  faut  1'adoucir  autant  qu'on 
le  peut." 

The  seventeenth  century  was  an  age  of  learned 
ladies.  In  our  day  of  colleges  it  would  be  difficult 
to  produce  a  more  accomplished  scholar  than 
Madame  Dacier,  or  better  educated  women  than 
Madame  de  Sevigne  and  Madame  de  Lafayette. 
Fenelon  looked  farther  afield  than  a  library;  he 
would  have  his  pupils  acquainted  with  the  practical 
details  of  law;  he  would  make  them  land  surveyors 
and  estate  agents  for  their  husbands'  acres,  practi- 
cally interested  in  the  condition  of  the  poor,  capable 
of  organising  village  schools,  charitable  clubs  and 
associations.  But  our  Platonist  is  at  his  happiest 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      133 

when  he  endeavours  to  persuade  a  little  girl  of  the 
separate  existence  of  the  soul. 

Fenelon's  little  book  leapt  into  fame  and  found, 
naturally,  no  prompter  reader  than  Madame  de 
Maintenon.  She  was  intimate  with  the  Beauvilliers, 
who  had  not  consented  to  receive  into  their  intimacy 
Madame  de  Montespan,  despite  her  connection  with 
their  house,  on  account  of  her  adultery  with  the 
King.  Minister  of  the  lover  and  kinsman  of  the 
mistress,  the  Duke  of  Beauvilliers  had  reserved  his 
private  life  :  "ils  etoient  fort  jaloux  de  leur  intrin- 
seque."  But  they  admitted  the  King's  unacknow- 
ledged wife.  Although  devoted  to  an  existence  of 
claustral  retreat — inaccessible  to  mortals,  rapt  in  the 
farthest  blue — Madame  de  Maintenon  so  far  de- 
parted from  her  pious  rule  as  to  dine  with  the 
Beauvilliers  once  or  twice  a  week,  she  the  fifth  at 
table,  between  the  two  Dukes  and  the  two 
Duchesses,  with  a  handbell  by  the  dish,  to  allow 
for  the  absence  of  servants.  Sometimes  there  was 
a  sixth  place  laid  at  dinner — for  the  Duchess  of 
Mortemart  or  the  Abbe  de  Fenelon.  Very  soon 
Madame  de  Maintenon  began  to  respond  to  the 
charm,  the  spiritual  grandeur  of  Fenelon.  Despite 
her  knack  of  managing,  her  intense  desire  to  be 
respectable,  and  her  constant  longing  for  something 
to  happen  (something  fresh,  delightful,  never  ex- 
perienced), despite  this  strong  worldly  strain  in  her, 
Madame  de  Maintenon  felt  the  attraction  of  the 
mystical  abyss.  .  .  .  She  was  a  Soul. 


134  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Franchise  d'Aubigne,  Madame  Paul  Scarron, 
Marquise  de  Maintenon,  was  a  Huguenot  by  birth, 
a  granddaughter  of  the  great  Agrippa  d'Aubigne, 
the  friend  of  Henri  Quatre.  Born  in  the  prison  of 
Niort,  her  parents  had  carried  her  in  childhood  to 
Martinique,  but,  after  six  years  spent  in  the  Antilles, 
on  her  father's  death  she  had  returned  to  France 
utterly  impoverished.  She  had  first  been  adopted 
by  a  Protestant  aunt,  whom  she  adored,  and  then  by 
a  Catholic  aunt,  whom  she  hated;  she  had  been 
converted  by  force ;  and  at  seventeen,  penniless  and 
pretty,  she  had  made  a  purely  formal  marriage  with 
a  man  of  some  genius,  in  his  line,  the  comic  poet, 
Paul  Scarron.  Scarron  had  lost  the  use  of  his 
limbs;  he  married  to  find  a  nurse,  and  she  to  have 
a  home.  Versailles  and  Paris  crowded  to  their 
meagre  table,  where  the  lovely  Madame  Scarron 
would  tell  a  story  to  supply  the  place  of  the  absent 
joint.  Her  wonderful  grey-black  eyes  and  her 
husband's  laughter  made  them  the  best  company  in 
town,  and  these  were  certainly  the  merriest,  happiest 
years  in  all  the  life  of  Frangoise  d'Aubigne.  Her 
husband  died  .  .  . 

"Passant,  ne  fais  ici  de  bruit,! 

Prends  garde  qu'aucun  ne  1'eVeille, 
Car  voici  la  premiere  nuit 

Que  le  pauvre  Scarron  sommeille." 

And  Madame  Scarron,  poorer  than  ever,  retired  with 
one  servant,  to  one  room,  on  the  top  floor  of  a 
convent  near  Saint-Eustache. 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      135 

She  was  literally  on  the  parish,  when  the  Queen 
bestowed  on  her  a  pension  of  two  thousand  francs. 
The  young  virgin-widow  had  many  friends  ("  en 
tout  bien,  tout  honneur"),  who  helped  her  in  many 
ways,  and  her  poor  circumstances  did  not  exclude 
her  from  the  best  society.  The  noblest  hostesses 
were  pleased  to  receive  the  modest,  pleasant  little 
lady,  so  convenient  for  running  errands,  so  oblig- 
ing in  fetching  a  log  for  the  fire,  or  dispatching  a 
lackey  to  call  a  coach — the  handbell  (so  much  in 
request  at  the  Hotel  de  Beauvilliers)  did  not  come 
into  general  use  until  a  few  years  later;  and 
Madame  Scarron  was  the  bell.  It  was  at  the  Hotel 
de  Richelieu,  or  the  Hotel  d'Albret,  that  she  first 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Madame  de  Montespan, 
the  King's  mistress,  who  engaged  the  young  widow 
as  governess  to  bring  up  in  secret  a  brood  of 
illegitimate  royal  princelings.  At  first  the  King 
could  not  endure  Madame  Scarron.  There  was  in 
her  something  fragile,  affected,  which  he  declared 
"  insupportable,  precieux,  guinde."  ...  It  is  said 
that  there  exists  in  the  forests  of  Paraguay  a  small 
flower,  so  sallow  of  aspect,  and  so  faint  of  odour, 
that  none  remark  it.  Yet  if  the  traveller  chance  to 
pluck  or  tread  upon  the  blossom,  a  bruised  perfume 
clings  to  his  hands  and  feet  so  poignant  and  so 
delicious  that  he  cannot  forget  it,  and  retraces  his 
steps,  like  a  man  enchanted,  trying  to  discover  the 
unnoticed  imperceptible  plant.  The  day  came 
when  the  simple  grace  of  Madame  Scarron,  her 


136  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

pure   religious    charm,    seduced    the    King.      And 
Ahasuerus  said  to  Esther— 

"Je  ne  trouve  qu'en  vous  je  ne  sais  quelle  grace 
Qui  me  charme  toujours  et  jamais  ne  me  lasse; 
De  Paimable  vertu  doux  et  puissants  attraits ! 
Tout  respire  en  Esther  1'innocence  et  la  paix ; 
Du  chagrin  le  plus  noir  elle  ecarte  les  ombres 
Et  fait  des  jours  sereins  de  mes  jours  les  plus  sombres." 

Du  chagrin  le  -plus  noir!  Did  Racine,  in  his 
transparent  allegory,  allude  to  the  real  crime  of 
Valtier e  Vashti  ?  Did  he  suspect  the  tragic  mystery 
of  the  great  poison  case  ? 

"Tout  ce  que  ce  palais  renferme  de  mysteres  .  .  . 
Le  Roi  d'un  noir  chagrin  parait  enveloppe'  .  .  ." 

The  King  loved  decency;  we  can  imagine  with 
what  feelings  he  learned  the  folly,  the  vulgar 
charlatanry,  the  crimes  of  that  unspeakable  affair. 
He  found  a  new  charm  in  order,  in  honour.  He  let 
Madame  Scarron  reconcile  him  to  the  affectionate, 
stupid  Queen.  Madame  Scarron  was  older  than 
either  Queen  or  King — three  years  older  than  the 
King.  She  appeared  an  ingenuous  angel,  of  a 
certain  age.  Her  beauty  had  not  survived  the 
attacks  of  middle  life,  but  she  had  preserved  her 
tranquil  grace,  "une  grace  incomparable  a  tout." 
To  guide,  to  inspire,  was  a  passion  with  Madame 
Scarron.  With  her  eternal  black  lace  mantilla, 
drooping  round  her  charming  faded  brow,  she  was 
happy  enough  between  the  King  and  Queen,  till 
1683.  Then  the  Queen  died.  And  the  King 
married  Madame  Scarron. 


FENELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK      137 

'Dieu  tient  le  cceur  des  rois  entre  ses  mains  puissantes, 
II  fait  que  tout  prospere  aux  ames  innocentes 
Tandis  qu'en  ses  projets  1'orgueilleux  est  trompd. 
De  mes  faibles  attraits  le  Roi  parut  frappe. 
II  m'observa  longtemps  dans  un  sombre  silence 
Et  le  ciel,  qui  pour  moi  fit  pencher  la  balance, 
Dans  ce  temps-la,  sans  doute,  agissait  sur  son  cceur. 
Enfin,  avec  des  yeux  ou  regnait  la  douceur. 
'Soyez  Reine!'  fit-il." 

All  that  was  four  long  years  before  the  King's 
espoused  saint  met  Fenelon.  The  clock  had 
stopped  in  that  hour  of  secret  glory  (for  the  marriage 
was  never  declared)  and  thenceforth  nothing 
changed.  Esther  learned  the  tedium  of  exalted 
station.  "Avant  d'etre  a  la  Cour,"  she  said  to  her 
girls  at  Saint-Cyr,  "  je  n'avais  jamais  connu  1'ennui. 
Mais  j'en  ai  bien  tate  depuis  !  Et  malgre  toute  ma 
raison,  je  crois  que  je  n'y  pourrais  jamais  resister  si 
je  ne  pensais  que  c'est  la  que  Dieu  me  veut."  Her 
duty  henceforth  was,  as  she  said,  "to  amuse  the 
unamusable." 

No  fate  could  have  been  more  irksome  to  poor 
Madame  Scarron.  Her  inconstancy,  or  rather  her 
incoherency,  her  lack  of  perseverance  was  proverbial. 

"  Elle  n'avait  de  suite  en  rien  que  par  contrainte 
et  par  force.  Son  gout  etoit  de  voltiger  en  connois- 
sances  et  en  amis  comme  en  amusements — qu'elle 
ne  put  guere  varier  depuis  qu'elle  se  vit  reine. 
Aisement  engouee,  elle  1'etait  a  Pexces;  aussi  facile- 
ment  deprise,  elle  se  degoutoit  de  meme — ce  qui 
plaisoit  hier,  etait  un  demerite  aujourd'hui."  (Saint- 
Simon,  t.  xiii.  ch.  i.) 


138  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Imagine  this  light  fragile  creature,  of  such  a 
prodigious  natural  instability,  doomed  for  thirty 
years  to  the  regularity  of  a  treadmill !  No  wonder 
that  one  day  she  wrote  to  Madame  de  Maisonfort : 
"  Ne  voyez-vous  pas  que  je  meurs  de  tristesse,  dans 
une  fortune  qu'on  aurait  eu  peine  a  imaginer  ? " 

In  the  first  throes  of  this  fever  of  ennui,  she 
attached  herself  desperately  to  the  Abbe  de  Fene- 
lon,  exchanging  with  him  volumes  of  correspond- 
ence on  the  spiritual  life.  At  one  moment  she 
thought  of  making  him  her  confessor.  But  the  strain 
of  practical  sense  in  her  reacted,  and  she  chose,  not 
the  saint,  but  an  orthodox  theologian,  the  Bishop 
of  Chartres,  whilst  reserving  to  Fenelon  the  privi- 
lege of  a  mystical  confidence.  One  day  she  prayed 
him  to  send  her  a  list  of  her  faults.  Fenelon 
replied  :  "  Quand  vous  commencez  a  trouver  quelque 
faible  dans  les  gens  que  vous  avez  espere  de  trouver 
parfaits,  vous  vous  en  degoutez  trop  vite,  et  vous 
poussez  trop  loin  le  degout." 


V 

The  Beauvilliers  and  their  coterie  divided  their 
spiritual  allegiance  between  Fenelon  and  a  certain 
pious  widow  nearing  forty,  named  Madame  Guyon. 
The  Duchess  of  Bethune-Charost  had  known  her 
for  many  years,  and  was  the  most  fervent  of  her 
disciples.  A  little  book  of  Madame  Guyon's,  the 
Moyen  court  et  facile  de  faire  oraison,  recently 


published,  answered  so  closely  to  the  inmost 
thoughts  of  the  Beauvilliers  and  the  Chevreuse  that 
the  mystical  authoress  became  the  oracle  of  their 
circle. 

Jeanne-Marie  Bouvieres  de  la  Mothe  was  a  native 
of  Montargis-en-Gatinois,  where  there  was  a  Royal 
chateau  (the  dower  house  of  the  King's  sister-in- 
law)  and  a  famous  convent  of  the  Visitandines, 
where  the  eight  demoiselles  de  Beauvilliers  were  at 
school ;  so  that  a  double  current  ran  between  the 
little  town  and  the  Court.  Montargis  stands  in  a 
moist  and  wooded  stretch  of  country,  north-east  of 
Orleans  and  south  of  Fontainebleau,  within  reach 
of  Paris;  and  often  Madame  de  Bethune-Charost 
would  leave  her  country  house  at  Beynes  for  a 
season  there  of  deeper  retreat  or  seclusion.  And  there 
Jeanne  de  la  Mothe,  when  a  mystical  child  of  fifteen 
(the  dreamiest  of  mortals,  ever  lost  in  some  romance 
of  chivalry  or  more  romantic  prayer),  had  given  her 
innocent  hand  in  marriage  to  gouty  M.  Guyon, 
twenty  years  older  than  herself,  the  son  of  the  great 
contractor  who  had  made  both  fame  and  fortune  in 
cutting  the  canal  of  Briare.  As  the  years  drew  on 
she  nursed  him  with  angelic  patience,  bore  him  five 
children,  and  learned  the  nothingness  of  earthly 
joys.  "Le  manage  a  ete  pour  moi  en  toute  maniere 
un  tres  rude  sacrifice,"  she  wrote  in  her  biography. 
And  she  sought  to  console  her  heart  with  the  Love 
of  God.  But  she  knocked  and  it  was  not  opened 
unto  her. 


140  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

The  Duchess  of  Bethune-Charost  had  been  the 
first  to  explain  to  the  youthful  Madame  Guyon  the 
secret  key  to  our  interior  Paradise—  "  1'oraison  par- 
faite."  1  Next  a  cousin  of  hers — a  missionary  home 
from  Cochin  China — ("  for  in  her  father's  family 
there  were  as  many  saints  as  there  were  persons  ")— 
explained  to  her  the  practice  of  that  inner  rapture. 

:( J'etais  surprise  de  ce  qu'il  me  disait  qu'il  ne 
pensait  a  rien  dans  1'oraison.  Nous  disions  ensemble 
1' office  de  la  Sainte  Vierge ;  souvent  il  s'arretait  tout 
court,  parceque  la  violence  de  1'attrait  lui  fermait  la 
bouche;  et  alors  il  cessait  les  prieres  vocales.  Je 
ne  savais  pas  encore  que  c'etait  cela." 

At  last  one  day  a  monk,  to  whom  she  spoke  of 
her  barrenness  in  prayer,  answered  :  "  It  is,  Madame, 
because  you  seek  without  that  which  exists  within. 
Accustom  yourself  to  look  for  God  in  your  heart, 
and  you  will  find  Him !  "  The  words,  she  said, 
transpierced  her  like  an  arrow,  and  thenceforth  she 
lived  in  a  condition  of  orison.  At  Montargis,  in 
her  drawing-room,  while  she  played  piquet  with 
her  old  husband,  the  inner  fire — the  Fire  of  Pascal 
— burned  and  lit  up  her  soul.  .  .  . 

When  she  was  twenty-eight,  in  1676,  her  husband 
died.  The  young  widow  of  twenty-eight,  nobly 
born,  attractive,  rich,  suffered  a  time  of  loss  and 
loneliness.  And  then  again  the  mysterious  instinct 
of  the  spiritual  life  surged  anew  in  her  soul,  rushed 

1  There  is  an  excellent  chapter  on  Madame  Guyon  in  M. 
Jules  Lemaitre's  Life  of  Fenclon. 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      141 

over  her  like  a  flood,  sweeping  away  the  landmarks 
of  her  usual  days.  Children,  fortune,  friends  were 
nothing  to  her — "et  toutes  les  creatures  humaines 
moins  qu'un  mouchoir."  Nothing  was  dear  or 
valuable  save  the  will  of  God,  and  the  sweet,  in- 
credulous, imperilled  souls  of  the  unfaithful.  She 
settled  her  estates  upon  her  children,  reserving  for 
herself  a  small  life-interest,  and  left  her  house  in 
1680  on  a  missionary  journey  to  Geneva.  There 
she  founded  for  the  new-converted  a  refuge  not 
unlike  the  Nouvelles-Catholiques  of  Paris.  At  Gex 
she  joined  a  certain  Barnabite  priest,  as  sincere  and 
as  unbalanced  as  herself,  whom  she  had  met  on 
one  occasion,  some  nine  years  before,  at  Montargis, 
and  who  then  had  made  the  strangest,  the  strongest 
impression  on  her  sensitive  soul.  And  when  she 
found  herself  anew  in  the  presence  of  this  Pere 
La  Combe,  Madame  Guyon  discovered  herself  to 
possess  a  new,  a  singular,  an  unsuspected  faculty — 
the  barriers  that  separate  mortal  souls  were  swept 
away,  an  inner  grace  flowed  constantly  from  her  to 
him,  from  him  to  her,  and  there  was  established  that 
marvellous  gift  of  interior  communication — a  sort 
of  spiritual  thought-transference  or  telepathy — 
which,  in  all  times  and  faiths,  has  been  the  property 
of  certain  mystics.  M.  Lemaitre  quotes  from  the 
Life  of  Madame  Guyon  an  eloquent  passage — an 
admirable  passage — 

:<Je  m'apergus  peu  a  peu  que,  lorsque  on  faisait 
entrer  le  P.  La  Combe,  ou  pour  me  confesser,ou  pour 


142  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

me  communier,  je  ne  pouvaisplus  lui  parler  et  qu'ilse 
faisait  a  son  egard  dans  mon  fond  le  meme  silence 
qui  se  faisait  a  1'egard  de  Dieu.  Je  compris  que 
Dieu  me  voulait  apprendre  que  les  hommes 
pouvaient  des  cette  vie  apprendre  le  langage  des 
anges.  Peu  a  peu  je  fus  reduite  a  ne  lui  parler 
qu'en  silence;  ce  fut  la  que  nous  nous  entendions 
en  Dieu  d'une  maniere  ineffable  et  toute  divine. 
Nos  cceurs  se  parlaient  et  se  communiquaient  une 
grace  qui  ne  se  peut  dire.  Ce  fut  un  pays  tout 
nouveau  pour  lui  et  pour  moi;  mais  si  divin  que  je 
ne  le  puis  exprimer." 

The  rare  critical  sense  of  M.  Lemaitre  was  well 
employed  in  discovering  and  setting  in  its  proper 
light  this  choice  and  singular  expression  of  a 
mystical  state,  which  is  a  reality,  if  an  extraordinary 
and  abnormal  reality.  But  I  cannot  follow  the 
great  French  critic  in  his  interpretation  of  these 
lines.  He  compares  Madame  Guyon  and  the  P. 
La  Combe  to  Musset  and  George  Sand !  He  ex- 
plains everything  on  the  supposition  that  they  were 
in  love  with  each  other.  Madame  Guyon,  I  think, 
would  answer  him  in  the  words  of  Spinoza :  The 
Love  of  Heaven  is  no  more  like  the  love  of  earth 
than  the  constellation  of  the  Great  Bear  resembles  the 
beast  that  goes  lumping  in  the  mountain  woods ! 

When  she  met  the  P.  La  Combe  Madame  Guyon 
was  three-and-thirty  years  of  age.  She  had  a  small 
slight  figure,  very  little  hands  (and,  saint  as  she  was, 
she  loved  to  go  ungloved),  and  great  eyes  that 
burned  with  an  extraordinary  fire.  There  is  a 


FENELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK      143 

description  of  her  by  the  Pere  Paulin  d'Amade — 
her  impassionate  voice,  her  trembling  lips,  her 
face  rosy,  her  body  quivering  with  suppressed  emo- 
tion— 

"  Elle  me  dit :  '  qu'elle  cherchait  et  qu'elle 
voulait  des  cceurs ' — ce  qu'elle  repeta  plusieurs  fois 
sans  dire  autre  chose." 

Although  the  small -pox  had  somewhat  tarnished 
the  whiteness  of  her  skin,  she  was  a  charming  woman, 
singularly  alluring  and  seducing,  because  of  a  cer- 
tain plaintive  innocence  strangely  mingled  with 
imaginative  powers.  She  moved  among  her  bishops, 
priests,  and  Barnabites  like  an  image  of  the  child- 
Christ  among  the  doctors.  Heedless,  unworldly, 
indiscreet,  and  pure,  wherever  she  went  men 
gossiped,  supposed  the  worst,  but  never,  then  or 
later  were  able  to  prove  aught  save  the  best,  and 
the  Church  (which  in  later  days  condemned  her 
doctrine)  finally  approved  her  spotless  life. 

She  returned  to  Paris  in  1687.  At  that  time  the 
Spanish  heresy  of  Molinos  disquieted  the  official 
guardians  of  the  Church.  Madame  Guyon,  with 
her  mystical  raptures,  her  desire  to  rise  unto  the 
presence  of  the  Eternal  "comme  il  etait  avant  la 
creation  du  monde,"  appeared  suspect  to  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Paris.  Perhaps  a  new  variety  of  Protest- 
ant, perhaps  a  Gnostic,  she  was  not  the  sort  of 
Catholic  to  be  encouraged.  Father  La  Combe  was 
arrested  in  October  1687,  and  in  January  1688 


144 

Madame  Guyon  was  imprisoned  in  the  rue  Saint- 
Antoine,  in  the  Convent  of  the  Visitation. 

Her  wild  yet  grave  sweetness,  as  of  a  saintly 
Muse,  endeared  her  to  the  nuns,  her  gaolers.  They 
did  not  cease  to  vaunt  her  piety,  her  innocent  gentle- 
ness, and  the  penetrating  unction  of  her  prayer. 
Madame  Guyon  was  a  magnetic  lady — "trainant 
tous  les  cceurs  apres  soi."  Virtue  seemed  to  go  out 
of  her.  And  one  day  the  Duke  of  Chevreuse  said  to 
Bossuet :  "  And  really,  when  you  are  in  the  presence 
of  Madame  Guyon,  do  you  never  feel  anything  stir 
in  you  ?  not  a  deep  interior  commotion  ?  " 

Her  strange  persuasive  magic  touched  not  only 
the  nuns  but  the  visitors  in  the  rue  Saint-Antoine, 
M.  et  Madame  de  Chevreuse,  the  Beauvilliers,  the 
Duchess  of  Bethune-Charost,  and  Madame  de 
Miramion,  that  saint  uncanonised.  So  that  Madame 
de  Maintenon  heard  on  all  sides  of  the  genius  and 
the  merit  of  a  woman  whose  sweet  indifference  and 
rapt  serenity  she  vainly  supposed  akin  to  her  own 
disenchantment.  Something  similar  in  their  early 
history  touched  her  fancy.  She  was  pleased  also  to 
show  the  weight  and  value  of  her  influence.  She 
threw  herself  into  the  business  of  liberating  the 
captive  saint,  so  that,  after  eight  months'  imprison- 
ment, in  the  middle  of  September  1688,  all  doors 
flew  open;  Madame  Guyon  was  released.  Madame 
de  Bethune-Charost  invited  her  more  than  once  to 
her  country  house  at  Beynes,  near  Versailles,  and  it 
was  there,  one  day  towards  the  autumn-feast  of  St. 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      145 

Francis  that  Fenelon  met  the  lady,  with  whose  gifts 
and  whose  misfortunes  he  was  already  acquainted. 


VI 

On  that  October  afternoon  Fenelon  encountered 
Madame  Guyon,  much  as  a  wary  family  physician 
meets  at  the  bedside  of  a  valued  patient  the  famous 
consulting  surgeon  whom  he  imagines  half  a  genius 
and  half,  perhaps,  a  quack.  He  was  probably  little 
reassured  by  her  charms  and  her  seduction,  having 
himself  the  utmost  degree  of  personal  magic,  and 
using  it  with  all  and  sundry,  with  master  and  man, 
as  unconsciously  as  a  flower  disengages  its  perfume. 
He  may  have  mistrusted  a  rival  enchantment.  He 
was  not  reassured  when  the  delicate  emotional 
woman,  who  rose  at  his  approach,  suddenly 
faltered,  and  sank  fainting  into  the  arms  of  the 
pious  duchesses  attendant,  overcome  by  one  of  her 
mysterious  and  mystical  "plenitudes."  .  .  .  Later 
she  told  him,  as  doubtless  she  confided  to  her 
friends,  how,  eight  years  before,  she  had  seen  the 
soul  of  Fenelon  in  a  dream — as  a  wonderful  bird — 
and,  again,  as  a  fountain  surging  through  a  basin  of 
ice,  as  something  unutterable  and  vague  appealing 
to  her,  destined  for  her,  drawing  her  with  a  super- 
sensual  attraction;  something  which  hitherto  she 
had  vainly  sought  in  all  her  travels.  And  the  first 
glance  at  Fenelon's  face  had  warned  her :  "  It  is 


146  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

he  !  "  .  .  .  The  devoted  ladies  led  her  aside,  loosed 
the  stiff-laced  bodice  that  her  beating  heart  had 
nearly  burst.  After  a  while  she  returned,  but  at  the 
sight  of  her  new  friend  the  painful  rapture  returned, 
and  she  exclaimed  in  an  ecstasy — 

"  My  son !  My  spiritual  son !  Thou  art  my 
well-beloved  son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased !  " 

Now,  if  Madame  Guyon  was  just  forty,  Fenelon 
was  already  thirty-seven,  an  ecclesiastic,  a  tall  dark 
lean  commanding  figure,  imposing,  attractive,  with 
"  une  autorite  de  prophete,"  said  Saint-Simon,  "  une 
domination  sous  sa  douceur  qui  ne  voulait  point  de 
resistance."  Such  an  address  filled  him  with 
amused  curiosity  rather  than  respect.  Madame 
Guyon  felt  that  he  did  not  take  her  seriously.  In 
a  fragment  of  autobiography  published  by  M. 
Maurice  Masson  in  his  valuable  volume,  she  dwells 
upon  this  lack  of  response — 

"Je  sentais  interieurement  que  cette  premiere 
entrevue  ne  le  satisfaisait  point,  qu'il  ne  me  goutait 
pas;  et  j'eprouvais  un  je  ne  sais  quoi  qui  me  faisait 
tendre  a  verser  mon  cceur  dans  le  sien,  mais  je  ne 
trouvais  pas  de  correspondance,  ce  qui  me  faisait 
beaucoup  souffrir.  La  nuit  je  souffrais  extremement 
a  son  occasion.  Nous  fimes  ensemble  trois  lieues 
en  carosse  (de  Beynes  a  Paris)  et  cela  s'eclairait  un 
peu,  mais  il  n'etait  pas  encore  comme  je  le  sou- 
haitais.  Je  souffris  huit  jours  entiers,  apres  quoi  je 
me  trouvais  unie  a  lui  sans  obstacle,  d'une  maniere 
tres  pure  et  ineffable.  .  .  .  Ces  premiers  jours, 
apres  notre  entrevue  a  Beynes,  je  souffris  beaucoup, 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK       147 

car  je  trouvais  comme  un  chaos  entre  lui  et  moi. 
Mais  ensuite  j'eprouvais  qu'il  se  faisait  un  ecoule- 
ment  presque  continuel  de  Dieu  dans  mon  ame,  et 
de  mon  ame  dans  la  sienne,  comme  ces  cascades  qui 
tombent  d'un  bassin  dans  un  autre." 

While  Madame  Guyon  spent  eight  days  of  be- 
wildered disappointment,  Fenelon  passed  from  a 
movement  of  amused  distrust  to  a  sense  of  sympathy 
and  veneration.  He  was  well  read  in  the  mystics — 
he  knew  them  all,  Platonists  and  neo-Platonists, 
Gnostics,  and  canonised  Saints — Theresa,  Catherine, 
Juan-de-la-Cruz  and  Francois  de  Sales.  But  in  his 
person  he  had  not  experienced  religion.  He  believed ; 
but  he  lacked  Pascal's  joy,  his  triumphant  liberation 
of  soul,  or  "  1'intime  assurance  "  of  a  Saint- Vincent- 
de-Paul.  That  spirituality  of  his,  so  deep  and  yet  so 
diffident,  was  reasoned  rather  than  instinctive.  And 
yet  his  cold  and  suave  address  masked  a  soul  im- 
patient for  the  love  of  God.  The  fainting  pro- 
phetess before  him,  whose  impulsive  manners  and 
extravagant  speeches  hurt  the  native  discretion  of 
his  taste,  struck  in  him  a  deeper  and  more  intimate 
vibration,  because  she  had  felt  and  seen  and  known 
those  things  which  he  surmised  afar  off  with  a 
passionate  longing.  So  a  Curie  or  a  Myers  might 
examine  an  Eusapia.  A  few  years  later,  when  the 
Church  accused  Fenelon  of  a  complicity  in  Madame 
Guyon's  heresy,  he  was  to  reply — 

1  Maurice    Masson,  Fenelon   et    Madam    Guyon:    Documents 
nouvcaux  et  inedits.     Hachette,  1907. 
L  2 


148  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

"  J'ai  cru  Madame  Guyon  une  tres  sainte  personne, 
qui  avait  une  lumiere  fort  particuliere  par  experi- 
ence, sur  la  vie  interieure.  Je  la  crus  fort  experi- 
mentee  et  eclairee  quoique  elle  fut  tres  ignorante. 
Je  crus  apprendre  plus  d'elle  en  examinant  ses  ex- 
periences, que  je  n'eusse  pu  faire  en  consultant  des 
personnes  fort  sages,  mais  sans  experience  pour  la 
pratique." 

Madame  Guyon  was  rather  a  poet  than  a  vision- 
ary. Her  prose  is  full  of  images.  She  sees  the 
soul  of  Fenelon  "  comme  une  eau  vivante  et  pro- 
f onde  quoique  toute  entouree  de  glace  " ;  she  sees 
the  grace  of  God  flooding  her  innermost  being,  and 
overbrimming  thence  in  dropping  plenitude  on  to 
the  soul  of  Fenelon,  "  like  the  waters  of  the  fountains 
at  Versailles  " ;  but  in  these  metaphors  the  poignant 
thing  is,  not  the  image  but  the  moral  fact  which 
they  explain.  She  had  a  certain  gentle  scorn  for 
the  imaginative  ecstasies  of  Port  Royal :  those 
dreamers  of  dreams,  those  flagellants  and  vision- 
aries appeared  to  the  thrilling  yet  tranquil  lady  as 
pilgrims  on  the  stair  which  leads  to  that  mute, 
mystic  Upper  Room  wherein  the  blest  perpetually 
behold  the  Fount  of  the  Divine  in  perfect  quiet. 
"  Les  ames  de  foi,"  she  wrote,  "  ne  sont  nullement 
imaginatives,  n'ayant  rien  dans  la  tete  et  tout  se 
passant  au-dedans.  Elles  sont  parfaitement  de- 
gagees  des  fantomes  et  especes,  etant  purinees 
dans  une  abstraction  bien  au-dela,  bien  au-dela 
des  representations."  We  might  apply  to  her 
the  words  which  Marot  used  of  another  mystic,  the 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      149 

Queen    of    Navarre :    "  Esprit    ravy,    abstraict,    et 
extatique." 

In  reading  the  works  of  Madame  Guyon,  we  must 
never  forget  that  her  mind's  eye  perceived  existence 
on  two  planes.  Above  reached  Eternity,  simultane- 
ous, infinite;  below,  the  world  of  Life  and  Time, 
where  things  pass  in  succession.  To  her,  as  to 
Fenelon,  Eternity  is  not  a  mere  persistence  in  time 
after  the  dissolution  of  the  body.  It  has  no  rela- 
tion to  time;  it  is  a  relation  to  the  Divine  Being. 
Eternity  has  to  do,  not  with  exist entia>  but  with 
essentia — it  is  not  a  continuance,  but  a  manner  of 
life — something  entering  into  our  existence  and 
transforming  it,  which  can  be  realised  here  and  now 
as  well  as  at  any  other  time  or  place.  Sometimes, 
rapt  out  of  its  mortal  sphere,  the  human  soul  may 
rise  for  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  into  the  spirit  of 
Eternity,  and  that  undying  moment  is  more  precious 
than  all  our  science,  all  our  righteousness ;  its  value 
(as  compared  with  theirs)  being  priceless,  even  as 
diamonds  are,  compared  with  copper  coins.  If  one 
pure  diamond,  inestimable,  be  ours,  what  does  it 
matter,  though  we  own,  or  owe,  a  countless  multi- 
tude of  farthings?  If  we  possess  the  Koh-i-noor, 
why  strive  to  increase  our  wealth  in  pence  and  half- 
pence? The  importance  of  sin  is  diminished  to  the 
mystic,  who  half-believes  that  Evil  (which  lies  out- 
side the  Eternal  Essence)  has  no  real  existence, 
deeming  our  faults  mere  phenomena,  mists  which 
dissolve  at  sunrise.  Our  errors  of  omission  and 


150  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

commission  seem  things  of  small  importance  to  the 
soul  which  longs  (as  Madame  Guyon  says  in  her 
Torrents  Spirituels)  to  enter  the  presence  of  Deity, 
and  behold  Him  as  He  was  before  the  creation  of 
the  world  and  man. 

And  this,  no  doubt,  is  a  dangerous  doctrine,  which 
may  seem  to  abolish  morality  (there  is  indeed  little 
connection  between  faith  and  morality);  but  it  is 
the  instinctive  doctrine  of  saints.  The  Penitent 
Thief  and  Mary  Magdalene  bear  witness  thereunto. 

We  have  sometimes  wondered  that  no  philosopher 
has  sought  to  borrow  some  such  theory  to  explain 
the  hauntings  and  hoverings  of  ghosts.  The 
Woman  in  White  for  ever  wailing  in  her  corridor, 
the  pale  spectre  carrying  her  candle  these  many 
hundred  years,  are  apparitions  puerile  and  appal- 
ling. But  suppose  that,  in  some  extreme  tension  of 
passion  or  fear  or  prayer,  these  souls  escaped  once,  at 
a  bound,  into  Eternity  and  remained  there  an  instant 
— as  though  sucked  up  into  a  superior  atmosphere— 
the  mechanical  action  which  they  were  performing 
at  that  stupendous  moment  is  accomplished  once 
and  for  ever,  not  in  a  succession  of  moments,  but  in 
the  vast  simultaneity  of  that  which  is  beyond  the 
realm  of  time.  A  thousand  years  to  them  are  as  a 
day,  and  they  carry  their  candle  for  ever,  since  their 
state  knows  not,  in  its  unfading  permanence,  the 
distinction  of  yesterday  and  to-morrow. 


FfiNELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK       151 


VII 

Saint-Simon,  so  shrewd,  so  prejudiced,  sometimes 
so  ill-informed,  knew  nothing  of  this  initial  hesita- 
tion in  the  friendship  of  Fenelon  and  Madame 
Guyon.  "  II  la  vit;  leur  esprit  se  plut  Tun  a  1'autre; 
leur  sublime  s'amalgama."  And,  in  fact,  a  few 
weeks  after  their  first  encounter,  Fenelon  and 
Madame  Guyon  were  spiritual  confederates.  Their 
correspondence  (published  by  M.  Maurice  Masson 
in  1907)  is  curiously,  intensely  interesting — at  least 
to  the  student  of  mystical  psychology — and  shows 
the  singular  interpenetration  of  their  souls. 

They  dreamed  together  of  a  Love  of  God  sur- 
passing the  love  of  individuals — an  idea,  a  senti- 
ment, that  we  can  understand  only  by  resolutely 
eliminating  all  kinds  of  passion,  every  sort  of  image  : 
"On  aime  d'autant  plus  alors  qu'on  aime  sans 
sentir."  They  imagined  a  religion  which  should  be 
a  continual  relation  between  Man  and  the  Infinite, 
and  which  consisted  less  in  conceiving  their  God  as 
present,  than  in  apprehending  Him  as  eternal;  and 
they  felt  their  own  nothingness  compared  to  that 
Eternity:  "Je  ne  suis  qu'un,  ajoute  a  un  autre  qui 
est  infiniment  plus  Un  que  moi !  "  The  God  that 
distributes  pains  and  pleasures,  rewards  and  recom- 
penses— Pascal's  God  ! — appeared  to  them  as  the 
idol  of  sorcerers.  All  they  asked  was  to  follow  the 
Will  of  the  Divine  as  passively,  as  mutely,  as 


152  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

the  rain  that  falls,  and  is  engulfed  into  the  bosom 
of  the  sea.  Their  aim  was  to  expel  all  passion  of 
self-interest,  all  hope  of  personal  gain  in  this  world 
or  the  next,  and  to  live,  welcoming  every  event, 
with  a  mind  serene  in  the  pure  vision  of  Truth— 

"Alors  on  aime  Dieu  au  milieu  des  peines,  de 
maniere  qu'on  ne  I'aimeroit  pas  davantage  quand 
meme  il  combleroit  Tame  de  consolation.  Ni  la 
crainte  des  chatiments,  ni  le  desir  des  recompenses 
n'ont  plus  de  part  a  cet  amour.  On  n'aime  plus 
Dieu,  ni  pour  le  merite,  ni  pour  la  perfection,  ni 
pour  le  bonheur  qu'on  doit  trouver  en  1'aimant.  On 
I'aimeroit  autant  quand  meme- — par  supposition  im- 
possible— il  devroit  ignorer  qu'on  1'aime,  et  qu'il 
voudroit  rendre  eternellement  malheureux  ceux  qui 
1'auront  aime. " x 

There,  in  the  words  of  Fenelon,  is  all  the  heresy 
of  Fenelon. 

As  an  island  is  surrounded  by  water,  as  night 
surrounds  the  stars  and  air  the  globe,  so  beyond  the 
narrow  region  of  the  known  there  stretches  an 
illimitable  space  of  darkness  and  silence.  All  minds 
know  that  it  is  there;  to  some  it  is  a  quiet  back- 
ground to  the  busy  scene  of  life;  to  some  the 
invisible  tract  has  its  chart  of  faith  or  dogma.  But 
there  are  men  to  whom  that  vast  and  dark  Unknown 
is  more  present  than  the  small,  shining  certainty  of 
the  Universe;  they  are  sucked  into  the  eddy  of  its 
vastness  and  its  darkness.  Souls  such  as  these  are 

1  Explication  des  Maximes  des  Saints. 


FENELON   AND    HIS  FLOCK      153 

never  quite  at  home  in  life.  The  Infinite  has 
enchanted  them;  they  are  drawn  by  the  attraction 
of  the  abyss. 

Mysticism  allures  in  various  ways  a  Pascal  and  a 
Fenelon;  it  has  different  magnets  for  the  passionate 
heart,  the  broken  and  humbled  will,  the  heated 
fancy,  the  indignant  spirit  wroth  with  the  world  and 
all  its  hardness — and  draws  no  less  the  reasoning 
and  metaphysical  mind,  repelled  by  dogma,  yet 
desirous  of  the  Deity.  The  mystics  of  all  times 
have  attempted  to  answer  questions  which  even 
to-day  the  theologians  elude :  l  !<  Whence  comes 
Evil  ?  "  Evil,  they  reply,  does  not  exist,  was  never 
made  by  God,  is  but  the  blanks  and  spaces  in  a 
creation  still  imperfect.  "Why  are  men  created 
responsible  beings  without  their  own  consent  ? " 
Terrible  question,  which  caused  such  anguish  to  the 
Jansenists  !  The  mystic  answers — if  he  be  truthful 
and  logical — that  our  bodies  are  not  created  by  a 
Divine  Act,  that  we  are  not  eternally  responsible 
for  their  sins.  They  are  but  the  temporary  expres- 
sion of  our  souls  .  .  .  scraps  of  paper  on  which 
the  poem  is  jotted  down;  once  we  have  printed 
the  poem  in  eternity,  the  scrap  of  paper  may  be 
thrown  away,  with  all  its  faults  and  errors.  .  .  . 
"  How  can  God  heed  our  action  if  He  be  omni- 
potent? If  omnipotent,  how  tolerant  of  evil?  If 
permitting  evil,  suffering,  sin  and  Hell,  how  then 
All-loving?  If  All-loving,  how  just?"  These 

1  See  Newman     Grammar  of 'Assent,  p.  210. 


154  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

questions  are  all  answered  by  the  mystical  concep- 
tion of  God  as  a  Divine  Passivity,  a  Fund  of  Exist- 
ence, nourishing  all.  "A  Godhead"  (as  Eckhart 
says)  "  above  God.  A  Godhead  that  neither  moves 
nor  works:  a  simple  Stillness;  an  eternal  Silence; 
the  Utmost  Term ;  the  simple  darkness  of  the  silent 
Waste  " — the  Movement,  ever  eddying,  behind  all 
transitory  Forms. 

Fenelon  and  Madame  Guyon  did  not  plumb  quite 
to  this  giddy  depth  the  bottomless  chasm  of  the 
interior  abyss,  but  they  held  all  the  essential  tenets 
of  the  mystics ;  and  firstly,  the  supple  dependence  on 
the  Will  of  the  Unknown :  "  Vouloir  tout,  vouloir 
rien.  .  .  .  Aller  par  le  non-yoir.  .  .  .  Marcher 
comme  Abraham,  sans  savoir  ou."  They  believed 
in  "  a  fathomless  annihilation  of  self,"  holding  that, 
even  as  waters  rush  up  a  tube  from  which  the  air  is 
expelled,  so,  as  Self  evaporates,  its  place  is  filled 
by  God — and  many  pages  of  their  letters  are  con- 
cerned with  the  discipline  of  this  "  desappropria- 
tion."  "  On  ne  se  vide  de  soi  qu'a  mesure,  qu'on 
se  remplit  de  Dieu,"  writes  Fenelon  to  Madame 
Guyon  x  in  a  singular  letter  wherein  he  recapitulates 
all  the  stations  of  the  spiritual  progress- 
ist. Recollection  and  simple  prayer — tending  to 
a  quiet  rapture  "par  laquelle  on  tend  a  cette  sim- 
plicite  et  a  cette  mort  des  sens  exterieurs." 

2nd.  Passive  Faith  ("on  laisse  1'Esprit  de  grace 
arnortir  peu  a  peu  les  gouts  sensibles  et  interieurs 
1  Masson,  Fenelon  et  Mme.  Guyon,  pp.  240-246. 


FtiNELON   AND    HIS   FLOCK       155 

qu'on  avait  eii  jusqu'alors  pour  les  vertus") — or,  as 
Nietzsche  would  say  :  "  We  live  on  the  other  side  of 
Good  and  Evil." 

3rd.  Naked  Faith — stript  of  all  images,  sensa- 
tions, sentiments  and  perceptions  :  God  is  no  longer 
perceptible  to  reason  or  feeling  ,  .  we  walk  in  the 
night. 

4th.  Death  Tame  expire  enfin  .  .  .  elle  est 
comme  un  corps  mort,  insensible  a  tout,  qui  ne 
resiste  a  rien,  et  que  rien  n'offense). 

5th.  Resurrection.  Life  begins  to  stir  in  the  dead 
soul  (but  not  our  life),  the  Life  Everlasting. 

6th.  Transfiguration  (1'ame  est  transformed  parce 
que  la  vie  et  la  volonte  de  Dieu  sont  a  la  place  de 
la  sienne  propre). 

This  is  the  "Vie  ressuscitee"  which  Madame 
Guyon  celebrates  in  her  manual  of  the  mystical 
life  :  Les  Torrents. 

The  first  commandment  of  this  new  spirituality 
was  to  have  no  commandments.  "  I  like  your  rule  " 
(Madame  Guyon  writes  to  Fenelon)  "of  taking  no 
thought  for  yourself,  and  asking  nothing  .  .  .  but 
I  should  like  still  better  that  you  made  no  law 
unto  yourself  at  all;  following,  in  all  simplicity  and 
suppleness,  the  impulsion  given  from  within.  .  .  . 
Ce  n'est  plus  la  vertu  que  nous  devons  envisager  en 
quoi  que  ce  soit — cela  n'est  plus  pour  nous — mats  la 
volonte  de  Dieu,  qui  est  au-dessus  de  toutes  *  les 
vertus" 

1  Masson,  333. 


156  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

No  commandments;  one  prayer,  three  words 
long :  Fiat  voluntas  tua !  Thy  Will  be  done ; 
and  one  belief  :  that  Faith  leads  us  blindly  up- 
wards to  absorption  in  the  perfect  unity — that  is, 
God.  Such  was  the  Nirvana  of  these  seventeenth- 
century  Theosophists.  It  was  not  a  personal  delight 
that  they  expected  in  their  divine  Abyss ;  it  was  the 
sense  of  dissolution  in  the  Deity — to  lose  oneself, 
to  drown,  extinguish,  escape  from  the  narrow  im- 
prisoning ego,  like  a  drop  of  rain  absorbed  in  the 
sea !  And  as  God,  at  an  infinite  depth,  is  the  secret 
source  of  everything,  so  (they  said)  in  the  Abyss  all 
souls  are  One  :  "  Les  ames  n'ont  rien  de  distinct,  et 
cette  distinction  est  entierement  opposee  a  la  foi." 
..."  Les  esprits  bienheureux  se  repandent  en- 
semble et  se  penetrent  les  uns  les  autres.  C'est  la 
Communion  des  Saints."  Thus  wrote  to  Fenelon 
his  friend,  Madame  Guyon. 

Condemned  by  the  Church  (perhaps  not  unwisely) 
as  a  most  dangerous  heresy;  ridiculed  without  mercy 
by  Voltaire  and  the  encyclopaedists  of  the  eighteenth 
century;  the  doctrines  of  Madame  Guyon  are  not 
without  their  apologists  to-day.  The  philosophers 
of  France  (converging  from  points  so  far  asunder 
as  the  idealism  of  M.  Bergson  and  the  monist 
psychology  of  M.  Georges  Dumas,  agree  in  con- 
sidering her  as  one  of  the  most  original  and  philo- 
sophical intelligences  of  her  times.  And  the 

1  Masson,  320. 


FENELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK      157 

Torrents — the  most  confused  and  excessive  of  her 
writings — has  found  its  audience,  fit  though  few. 


VIII 

The  New  Spirituality  became  the  secret  gospel  of 
the  pious  dukes  and  duchesses  grouped  round 
Madame  de  Bethune-Charost ;  seduced,  among 
others,  Madame  de  Maintenon,  and  penetrated  her 
College  of  Saint-Cyr.  Madame  Guyon  had  there 
a  cousin — Madame  de  la  Maisonfort — a  charming 
young  canoness  of  three-  or  four-and-twenty,  of  an 
ancient  and  noble  family  in  Berry.  About  the  end 
of  1698  this  young  lady  came  to  live  at  Saint-Cyr, 
where  she  was  employed  in  teaching  "  elle  eut 
bientot  toute  autorite  dans  la  maison  avec  Madame 
de  Brinon  qui  en  etoit  superieure."  1  Madame  de  la 
Maisonfort  was  naturally  an  ardent  Guyonite,  and 
she  was  one  of  the  gifted  penitents  of  the  Abbe  de 
Fenelon.  In  a  short  time  their  views  and  doctrines 
penetrated  all  the  school — 

"  Presque  toute  la  maison  devint  Quietiste  sans 
le  savoir.  On  ne  parlait  plus  que  d'amour  pur  de 
Dieu,  d'abandon,  de  sainte  indifference  et  de  sim- 
plicite.  Cette  derniere  vertu  servait  de  voile  a  la 
recherche  de  toutes  les  petites  satisfactions  person- 
nelles.  On  prenait  ses  aises  et  ses  commodites  avec 
la  sainte  liberte  des  enfants  de  Dieu.  On  ne 

1  Notes  (fun  Contemporain.     See  E.  Griselle,  Fenelon:  Docu- 
ments HistoriqueS)  245. 


158  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

s'embarassait  de  rien — pas  meme  de  son  salut.  .  .  . 
Jusqu'au  soeurs  converses  et  aux  servantes,  il  n'etait 
plus  question  que  de  pur  amour !  " 

And  the  lay  sisters  forgot  to  sweep  their  corridors 
in  order  to  read  the  tracts  of  Madame  Guyon;  so  at 
least  averred  that  refractory  spirit  of  a  school- 
mistress, Madame  Catherine  de  Perou,  a  lady  of 
Saint-Cyr,  seven  times  Superior  of  the  house. 

It  is  singular  to  find  a  School  for  Girls  at  the  very 
centre  of  a  puissant  state,  but  so  it  was  in  France 
towards  1689,  when  the  same  bevy  of  noble  maidens 
who  confessed  their  sins  to  Fenelon,  and  raved  of 
Madame  Guyon,  played  Racine's  new  Mystery  of 
Esther  before  the  Court,  with  unparalleled  success. 
Esther  was  a  sensitive  tentacle  extended  —  a 
feeler  timidly  stretched — to  explore  the  state  of 
opinion  as  to  a  public  declaration  of  the  King's 
secret  marriage,  which  seemed,  at  one  time,  so 
probable  that  Louvois  threw  himself  at  Louis'  feet 
and  swore  that,  if  such  a  thing  happened,  he,  for 
one,  would  not  survive  so  great  a  degradation  of 
the  throne.  Saint-Simon  declares  that  Fenelon, 
consulted,  advised  the  King  not  to  divulge  his 
union,  and  thus  made  an  enemy  of  his  friend,  the 
unacknowledged  Queen.  Saint-Simon  is  a  gossip 
in  the  same  degree  that  he  is  an  historian  of  genius. 
Yet,  if  the  King  did  consult  Fenelon,  such  would 
doubtless  have  been  his  answer.  Fenelon  was  the 

1  La  valise,  Mme.  de  Maintenon  et  Saint-Cyr ;  p.  190. 


FtfNELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      159 

near  and  intimate  friend  of  Madame  de  Maintenon, 
but  he  was  an  aristocrat  to  the  very  marrow  of  the 
soul;  he  could  not  have  envisaged  Scarron's  widow 
as  the  Queen  of  France. 

There  were  also  other  reasons  for  a  loosening  of 
the  ties  between  Fenelon  and  the  uncrowned  Queen; 
for  uncrowned  she  remained;  the  French  Ahasu- 
erus  never  said  to  his  married  Esther :  "  Soyez 
Reine." 

She  was  the  witness,  the  somewhat  disconcerted 
witness,  of  the  wave  of  transport,  of  fervour,  which 
lifted  so  high  (almost  out  of  her  reach)  her  two 
favourites,  the  priest  and  the  prophetess.  Their 
names  and  their  precepts  were  always  in  her  ears; 
she  herself,  the  foundress,  was  second  to  Madame 
Guyon  at  Saint-Cyr. 

Perhaps  an  unconscious  jealousy  touched  the 
still  crownless  Queen  of  Versailles.  Fenelon  was 
now  the  idol  of  the  court,  and  Madame  Guyon,  at 
Marly,  was  Dame  Oracle.  Pious  ladies  read  her 
commentaries  to  their  husbands  or  their  lovers ;  and 
chanted  Le  tout  de  Dieu  et  le  rien  de  Vhomme 
to  the  music  of  La  jeune  Iris  me  fait  aimer  ses 
chaines — even  as  their  great-grandmothers  had 
sung  the  Psalms  of  Marot  to  their  lutes.  Madame 
de  Maintenon  herself  read  the  Moyen  Court  to 
the  King.  But  the  King  said  it  was  all  moonshine  : 
"  II  me  dit  que  c'etaient  des  reveries.  II  n'est  pas 
assez  avance  dans  la  piete  pour  gouter  cette 
perfection." 


160  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Madame  de  Maintenon  began,  indeed,  to  have 
doubts  as  to  the  orthodoxy  of  this  revelation.  She 
wrote  to  Madame  de  St.  Geran — 

"  II  y  a  des  endroits  obscurs,  il  y  en  a  d'edifiants, 
il  y  en  a  que  je  n'approuve  en  aucune  maniere. 
L'Abbe  de  Fenelon  m'avait  dit  que  le  Moyen 
Court  contenait  les  mysteres  de  la  plus  sublime 
devotion,  a  quelques  petites  expressions  pres,  qui  se 
trouvent  dans  les  ecrits  des  mystiques." 

These  "  quelques  petites  expressions  "  disquieted 
Madame  de  Maintenon.  She  was  always  anxious 
about  her  spiritual  health.  She  suffered  from  a 
hypochondria  of  the  soul,  feeling  herself  in  the 
situation  of  a  woman,  apparently  cured  of  an  early 
consumption,  who  cannot  forget  the  taint  of  tuber- 
culosis in  her  blood,  and  trembles  at  every  cough  or 
hectic  flush.  Madame  de  Maintenon  remembered 
with  dismay  her  Huguenot  descent,  her  heretic 
breeding. 


IX 

At  this  moment  Fenelon  was,  spiritually,  the  most 
influential  man  in  France.  He  had  no  official 
position.  With  the  two  thousand  francs  a  year  of 
his  Abbey  of  Saint- Valery  he  lived  in  an  elegant 
parsimony  that  never  disturbed  him.  He  was  accus- 
tomed to  being  poor,  and  also  to  being  among  the 
first  in  any  company.  Versailles  did  not  dazzle 


FENELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK      161 

him;  he  had  vast  halls  at  Fenelon;  and  his  old 
soutane  did  not  distress  him — he  had  been  reared 
among  the  worn  tapestries,  the  crumbling  furniture, 
of  his  "  poor  Ithaca  "  by  the  Dordogne. 

But  the  greatest  in  France  hung  on  his  lips.  "  Do 
you  remember  when  you  used  to  beg  me  to  read  out 
to  you  the  pious  writings  of  M.  de  Fenelon?  "  wrote 
Madame  de  Maintenon  to  the  King  in  later  days, 
when  she  thought  him  growing  lukewarm  in  religion. 
.  .  .  Such  heights  are  dizzy.  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon  and  M.  de  Meaux  began  to  fear  a  certain 
vertigo  for  Fenelon.  "  II  faut  le  desengouer  de 
Madame  Guyon"  ("We  must  disenchant  him"), 
said  the  great  lady.  A  vague  jealousy,  a  dim  sus- 
picion, began  also,  about  this  time,  to  disturb  the 
benignant  tranquillity  of  Bossuet.  Had  the  charm- 
ing Abbe  from  Gascony  conceived  the  bold,  the 
secret,  dream  of  keeping  the  conscience  of  the 
court?  While  graciously  indifferent  to  apparent 
success,  was  he  concealing  the  sceptre  of  an  occult 
supremacy?  What  were  the  doctrines  he  diffused? 
Bossuet  had,  for  heresy,  the  scent  of  one  of  the 
hounds  of  the  Lord,  ever  on  the  track. 

At  this  date,  no  ill-will  moved  either  the  bishop 
or  the  lady — a  certain  alarm,  at  most,  and  dis- 
approval— a  desire  to  withdraw  their  gifted  protege 
from  the  clutches  of  a  spiritual  siren — to  find  him 
other  employment — to  turn  his  attention  to  more 
salutary  quarters.  It  began  to  be  rumoured  about 
the  court  that  M.  de  Fenelon  would  probably  be 

M 


162  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

appointed  governor  to  the  grandchildren  of  Louis 
XIV.  For  ten  years  Bossuet  had  been  their  father's 
tutor — had  made  nothing  much  of  his  young  prince 
— had  certainly  reaped  no  great  advantage  for  him- 
self— but  remembered  the  post  as  honourable  and 
occupying,  such  as  his  friend  might  fill.  Neither 
the  royal  governor  of  yesterday  nor  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  that  royal  governess,  could  imagine 
the  mood  of  prayer,  passion,  poetry — the  wild 
chimeras,  the  Utopian  charity — which  could  fill  the 
heart  of  a  Fenelon  or  a  Madame  Guyon  when 
they  contemplated  the  chance  of  forming  a  future 
for  France !  A  Pascal  might  have  understood 
them. 

"On  a  souvent  oui  dire  a  M.  Pascal"  (reports 
Nicole)  "que  nul  emploi  du  monde  ne  lui  cut  plus 
agree  que  celui  d'instituteur  de  1'heritier  presomptif 
de  la  couronne  de  France,  et  qu'il  aurait  volontiers 
sacrifie  sa  vie  pour  une  chose  si  importante." 

It  was  in  this  world  of  hope  and  prayer  that 
Fenelon  and  his  flock  contemplated  such  a  possi- 
bility. The  little  Prince,  "  le  petit  Prince,"  was  one 
of  the  great  hopes  of  the  Guyonites.  "  I  assure  you 
in  God,"  wrote  Madame  Guyon,  "you  will  be 
there,  not  only  for  the  little  Prince,  but  for  the 
greatest  Prince  of  all — Christ  Jesus." 

It  was  to  Fenelon  that  the  prophetess  turned  for 
help  in  her  schemes  of  regeneration.  With  his  aid 
she  hoped  to  see  on  the  horizon  the  dawn  of  a  renewal 
for  France.  That  year,  while  the  young  ladies  at 


FENELON  AND  HIS  FLOCK   163 

Saint-Cyr  were  playing  Esther,  Racine  was  busy 
upon  another  play,  a  great  moral  drama  or  pasan, 
telling  how  Israel  was  saved  from  the  pit  of  corrup- 
tion by  a  child.  A  little  child  should  lead  the  nation 
— parvulus  puer — a  boy  reared  in  the  Temple  apart 
from  the  vanity  of  courts.  Their  Joas,  their  Eliacin, 
was  the  son  of  the  stupid  Dauphin,  a  violent  sensi- 
tive little  lad  of  seven,  on  whom  centred  the  hopes 
of  such  as  dared  to  hope  for  France — 

"  Te  duce,  si  qua  manent,  sceleris  vestigia  nostri 
Inrita  perpetua  solvent  formidine  terras  .  .  . 
Magnus  ab  integro  sseclorum  nascitur  ordo." 

In  August  1689  Fenelon  was  appointed  tutor  to 
this  young  prince,  the  Duke  of  Burgundy.  Hence- 
forth his  life,  his  letters,  his  books,  his  heart,  will  be 
full  of  P.  P. — petit-Prince — his  aim,  his  hope,  his 
charge.  Beauvilliers  was  governor  to  the  royal 
child,  and  filled  his  household  with  officers  of  pious 
merit.  In  their  midst,  his  pupil  at  his  knees, 
Fenelon,  with  his  friend  the  Abbe  de  Langeron, 
dwelt  for  eight  years,  and  touched  the  dream  of  his 
life.  For  he  hoped  to  save  France  and  to  form  a 
new  Saint-Louis — a  "  Roi-philosophe,"  as  he  de- 
clares in  Telemaque.  His  idea  of  a  Revolution 
was  to  change  the  heart  of  the  King.  He  had  this 
much  of  the  Quietist  in  him  that  he  distrusted  all 
exterior  reform,  for  the  only  activity  in  which  he 
believed  was  that  which  wells  up  unconsciously  from 
the  depths  of  our  nature.  He  would  have  said  with 
Madame  Guyon  :  "  Toute  vertu  qui  n'est  pas  donnee 


M  2 


164  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

par  le  dedans  est  un  manque  de  vertu."  And  from 
the  centre  of  the  throne,  from  the  heart  of  a  king, 
he  hoped  to  renew  the  land  of  France,  ruined  by 
wars  of  magnificence,  by  the  King's  debts,  the  cor- 
ruption of  government,  and  the  ceaseless,  exhaust- 
ing, centripetal  suction  of  Versailles. 


X 

Madame  de  Maintenon  was  still  a  governess  at 
heart — a  governess,  anxious,  indignant,  at  the 
spread  of  dangerous  opinions  in  her  school.  She 
confided  her  doubts  and  fears  to  her  new  confessor, 
the  Bishop  of  Chartres;  and,  suddenly  taking  fire 
with  fresh  alarms,  laid  before  him  the  several 
volumes  of  her  spiritual  correspondence  with 
Fenelon. 

The  Bishop  was  a  pupil  of  Saint-Sulpice,  and 
inclined  to  deal  lightly  with  his  condisciple ;  he  laid 
at  first  but  little  stress  on  the  mysticism  of  Fenelon, 
but  found  in  Madame  Guyon's  writings  more  than 
one  passage  which  appeared  to  echo  the  Quietist 
heresy  of  Molinos,  the  Spaniard.  The  days  of 
Madame  Guyon's  glory  were  departed.  For  one 
thing,  the  magnetic  lady  was  no  longer  on  the  scene ; 
she  had  married  a  little  daughter  of  hers,  a  girl  of 
thirteen,  to  the  Duchess  of  Bethune's  brother;  and 
she  had  gone  to  live  in  the  country  with  her  childish 
marchioness.  Her  charming  contact  being  so  far 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      165 

removed,  her  ideas  might  safely  have  been  left  to 
evaporate,  but  Madame  de  Maintenon,  in  her  alarm, 
was  for  extirpating  heresy  root  and  branch;  and 
a  commission  of  ecclesiastics  was  appointed  to 
examine  the  theories  of  Madame  Guyon. 

We  have  compared  Fenelon's  first  attitude 
towards  Madame  Guyon  to  that  of  an  experienced 
doctor  confronted  with  a  surgeon  whom  he  half 
suspects  of  quackery,  but  of  whose  genius  he  is 
rapidly  persuaded.  Imagine  the  same  physician, 
face  to  face  with  a  lean  Pastorian,  down-at-heel, 
out-at-elbows,  modest,  and  fierce ;  you  have  a  picture 
of  Fenelon,  vis-a-vis  of  the  suspicious  Bishop  of 
Chartres.  The  mystic  on  this  occasion  showed  a 
certain  superficiality  in  underrating  the  worth  of  his 
opponent,  whose  appearance  belied  him.  Godet, 
Bishop  of  Chartres  (such  as  Saint- Simon  paints  him 
in  one  of  his  admirable  portraits),  was  not  the  pedant 
proclaimed  by  an  exterior  of  which  Fenelon  was  the 
dupe. 

"  II  le  crut  tel  a  sa  longue  figure  malpropre, 
decharnee,  toute  Sulpicienne.  Un  air  cm,  simple, 
un  aspect  niais,  et  sans  liaison  qu'avec  de  plats 
pretres;  en  un  mot  il  le  prit  pour  un  homme  sans 
monde,  sans  talent,  de  peu  d'esprit  et  court  de 
savoir.  ...  II  etait  pourtant  fort  savant  et  surtout 
profond  theologien.  II  y  joignait  beaucoup 
d'esprit ;  il  avait  de  la  douceur,  de  la  fermete,  meme 
des  graces." 

He  had  already  whistled  Madame  de  Maintenon 


166  THE   FRENCH    IDEAL 

from  the  brilliant  Fenelon;  the  day  when  he 
arraigned  and  disgraced  Madame  Guyon  was 
ominous  for  her  spiritual  friend. 

Yet,  at  first,  the  distress  of  Madame  Guyon  left 
Fenelon  unharmed.  Proceedings  were  taken  against 
the  prophetess  in  1693;  not  until  1695  was  Fenelon 
disgraced.  And  had  he  consented  to  forsake  his 
Egeria,  his  fortunes  might  have  remained  unim- 
paired. Godet  was  a  Sulpician,  and  fain  to  spare  a 
colleague;  while  Madame  de  Maintenon's  private 
letters  show  a  long  regard,  a  lingering  tenderness, 
for  Fenelon  which  accord  ill  with  Saint-Simon's 
fable  of  her  enmity.  She  did  not  hate  him.  She 
merely  meant  to  manage  him  for  his  own  good — to 
read  him  such  a  lesson  as  would  wean  him  once  for 
all  from  dangerous  ways.  As  Fenelon  wrote  to  her, 
more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger — 

"Vous  passates  de  1'exces  de  simplicite  et  de 
confiance  a  un  exces  d'ombrage  et  d'effroi.  Voila  ce 
qui  a  fait  tous  nos  malheurs.  Des  gens  vous  firent 
entendre  que  je  deviendrais  peut-etre  un  heresi- 
arque.  .  .  .  Vous  n'osates  suivre  votre  cceur  ni 
votre  lumiere.  Vous  voulutes  (et  j'en  suis  edifie) 
marcher  par  la  voie  la  plus  sure,  qui  est  celle  de 
1'autorite." 

Unfortunately,  Fenelon  himself  showed  no  pre- 
disposition to  this  path  of  submission.  A  most 
unclerical  independence,  an  unchristian  reluctance 
to  eat  his  own  words  or  give  up  his  friends  at  the 
bidding  of  authority,  made  him  difficult  to  influence. 
A  hint  from  Godet  proving  insufficient,  the  orthodox 


FENELON   AND   HIS  FLOCK      167 

lady  brought  up  her  rearguard,  and  Bossuet  con- 
demned the  works  of  Madame  Guyon  in  April  1695. 
Bossuet  had  been  the  early  master  of  Fenelon,  and 
there  is  a  magic  to  a  reverent  heart  in  the  name  and 
the  memory  of  the  master  of  our  youth.  And  yet 
that  reverent  heart,  as  time  draws  on — widening  the 
abyss  that  divides  successive  generations — may 
grow  most  painfully  awake  to  the  faults  in  yester- 
day's oracle.  The  fame  of  Bossuet  still  filled 
Church  and  kingdom  with  an  incomparable  prestige, 
while  Fenelon  saw  in  keen  relief,  not  only  the 
genius  and  the  noble  character  of  the  great  bishop, 
but  all  that  was  overweening,  pompous,  even 
blatant  in  that  arrogant  genius,  in  that  stubborn 
character. 

He  knew  that  his  glorious  contemporary  was  little 
versed  in  the  precepts  of  the  mystics  so  familiar  to 
his  own  meditations.  Bossuet,  whose  mind  was 
dogmatic,  not  curious,  had  never  cared  to  read  St. 
Francis  de  Sales,  St.  Catherine  of  Siena,  Juan  de 
la  Cruz,  nor  any  of  those  earlier  dreamers  whose 
mystical  imagination  outran  the  regular  patrol  of  his 
Gallican  mind.  Yet  he  had  not  hesitated  to  con- 
demn the  books  of  Madame  Guyon.  Fenelon 
saw  that  he  blamed  in  them  precepts  which  are 
admired  in  the  utterance  of  canonised  saints. 
Madame  Guyon  is  not  alone  in  thinking  that  the 
first  rung  on  Jacob's  ladder  to  Heaven  leads  us 
beyond  the  regions  of  merit  and  reward.  Through- 
out the  ages  of  the  Church,  in  every  century,  from 
Scotus  Erigena  to  Meister  Eckhart,  from  Joachim 


168  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

de  Flora  to  the  great  bishop  of  Annecy,  there  have 
been  saints  and  sages  whose  religion  has  accom- 
panied sadly,  as  in  a  minor  third,  the  public  ortho- 
doxy of  Roman  doctrine — minds  who  sought  their 
deity  within,  and  in  perception  rather  than  in  pre- 
cept ;  whose  piety  has  been,  not  passive  perhaps,  but 
quiet;  minds  whose  sense  is  filled  with  the  eternity 
of  the  One-in-all,  so  full  as  to  outweigh  and  over- 
master their  sense  of  personal  immortality;  whose 
devotion  to  the  Holy  Spirit  has  been  more  con- 
spicuous than  their  adoration  of  the  Son  of  Man. 
And  often  these  are  minds  of  faith  and  saintliness. 
.  .  .  The  Church  has  pronounced  some  of  them 
blessed.  Others  have  been  cast  to  the  burning. 
Habent  fata  animae  / 

The  crime  of  heresy  was  still  dangerous  in  the 
closing  years  of  the  seventeenth  century.  "  Let 
them  burn  me  !  "  cried  Madame  Guyon.  "  Que  ma 
cendre  vole ! "  Fenelon,  who  had  evangelised 
Poitou,  knew  to  what  peril  a  heretic  was  exposed. 
The  Dragonnades  were  barely  passed.  It  was 
impossible  for  so  chivalrous  a  soul  (whose  sense  of 
honour  had  received  no  tonsure)  to  forsake  a  poor 
innocent  woman  whom  he  believed  holy,  imprudent, 
indiscreet — with  the  double  claim  of  saintliness  and 
helplessness.  When  Bossuet  and  Godet  asked  him 
to  sign  their  refutation  of  her  errors,  he  refused  his 
name — 

"  Me  convient-il  d'aller  accabler  une  pauvre 
personne  que  tant  d'autres  ont  foudroyee,  et  dont 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      169 

j'ai  ete  l'ami?  .  .  .  Quant  a  M.  de  Meaux,  je  serais 
ravie  d'approuver  son  livre,  comme  il  le  souhaite 
mais  je  ne  le  puis  honnetement,  ni  en  conscience, 
s'il  attaque  une  personne  qui  me  parait  innocente 
.  .  .  que  j'ai  reveree  comme  une  sainte,  sur  tout  ce 
que  j'en  ai  vu  par  moi-meme." 

And  again  he  writes  to  Madame  de  Maintenon — 

:<Je  n'ai  jamais  eu  aucun  gout  naturel  pour  elle 
ni  pour  ses  ecrits.  Je  n'ai  jamais  eprouve  rien 
d'extraordinaire  en  elle  qui  ait  pu  me  prevenir  en 
sa  faveur.  II  m'a  paru  qu'elle  etait  naturellement 
exagerante  et  peu  precautionnee  dans  ses  experi- 
ences. Je  ne  compte  pour  rien  ses  pretendues 
proprieties.  ...  Si  j'etais  capable  d'approuver  une 
personne  qui  enseigne  un  nouvel  evangile,  j'aurais 
horreur  de  moi-meme  .  .  .  mais  je  puis  fort  inno- 
cemment  me  tromper  sur  une  personne  que  je  crois 
sainte" 

And  again  to  Madame  de  Maintenon  in  1697 — 

"On  ne  manquera  pas  de  dire  que  je  dois  aimer 
1'Eglise  plus  que  mon  amie.  .  .  .  Comme  s'il 
s'agissait  de  1'Eglise  dans  une  affaire  ou  la  doctrine 
est  en  surete !  .  .  .  C'est  une  pauvre  femme  cap- 
tive, accablee  de  douleurs  et  d'opprobres;  personne 
ne  la  defend  ni  ne  1'excuse  et  on  a  toujours  peur !  " 

From  this  position  he  refused  to  vary.  He  had 
been  Madame  Guyon's  friend;  he  believed  her 
innocent;  he  did  not  question  the  wisdom  of  his 
superiors,  but  he  refused  to  sign  a  condemnation  of 
her  doctrines. 

1  Letter  of  Fe'nelon  to  the  Superior  of  Saint-Sulpice,  September 
25,  1696. 


170  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Meanwhile,  the  months  passed — the  months  and 
the  years — and  Fenelon  saw  no  more  of  the  woman 
he  defended.  He  had  left  Paris  in  August  1689, 
to  enter  the  palace  of  Versailles  as  tutor  to  the 
prince;  about  the  same  time  Madame  Guyon  had 
accompanied  her  daughter  to  the  country  place  of 
the  Marquis  de  Vaux.  And  thence  she  had  been 
sent  to  the  convent  of  Meaux,  where  Bossuet  kept 
her  amicably  imprisoned,  drenching  her  with  ortho- 
doxy, swamping  her  arguments  in  the  imperious 
flood  of  his  authority.  Madame  Guyon  appeared 
delighted  to  enjoy  the  instruction  of  so  great  a 
prelate,  showed  him  her  manuscripts  with  the  fear- 
less freedom  of  a  pleased  child,  manifested  no 
resentment  at  being  kept  in  secret  from  all  corre- 
spondence with  the  outer  world,  and  behaved  herself 
so  sweetly  that  the  gaoler-nuns  adored  her,  and 
Bossuet  himself,  while  censuring  her  books,  gave  her 
a  certificate  of  good  conduct  and  let  her  out  of 
prison  during  the  summer  of  1695.  Against  his 
express  desire  and  command,  the  imprudent  woman 
went  at  once  to  Paris,  and  here  she  may  have  seen 
her  friend  by  stealth;  but  not  more  than  once  or 
twice,  since,  within  a  little  while  of  her  arrival, 
Fenelon's  place  at  court  was  to  know  him  no  more. 


XI 

The  King  had  never  shared  the  general  enthu- 
siasm for  Fenelon.    He  had  dubbed  him  "  un  esprit 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      171 

chimerique."  In  the  memoirs  of  Chancellor 
d'Aguesseau  we  learn  much  concerning  the  King's 
distaste  for  something  chivalrous,  rare,  romantic  in 
the  character  of  Fenelon — "  soit  que  le  roi  craignit 
naturellement  les  esprits  d'un  ordre  superieur,  soit 
qu'une  certaine  singularite,  quelque  chose  d'extra- 
ordinaire,  n'eut  pas  plu  au  roi  dont  le  gout  se  portait 
de  lui-meme  au  simple  et  a  l'uni." 

Fenelon,  at  Versailles,  had  lived  a  life  apart, 
sequestered  in  the  fold  of  his  pious  flock.  He  knew 
the  quiet  splendour  of  his  powers,  the  Attic  perfec- 
tion of  his  sense  and  style;  literature  and  politics, 
bathed  in  the  radiance  of  his  religion,  filled  his  mind 
with  projects  for  the  future.  Accustomed  to  the 
gentle  victories  of  his  grace,  although  he  bestirred 
himself  but  little,  he  counted  on  the  future.  In  1693 
he  had  been  elected  a  member  of  the  French 
Academy ;  he  shared  with  Bossuet  the  pre-eminence 
of  pious  oratory;  he  was  forming  his  future  king 
and  writing  Telemaque;  with  Beauvilliers,  he 
meditated  plans  of  national  reform. 

Once  he  had  written  to  Madame  Guyon  :  "  If 
they  offer  me  a  bishopric,  would  it  be  lawful  in  me 
to  refuse  it?  I  am  more  useful  here."  That  was 
some  years  ago,  when  there  had  been  some  talk  of 
offering  Fenelon  the  bishopric  of  Poitiers.  And 
now  there  was  talk  again  of  possible  promotion.  At 
court,  and  especially  in  the  "petit  troupeau,"  there 
were  many  who  speculated  on  the  failing  health  of 
the  Archbishop  of  Paris.  The  King  owed  some 


172  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

reward  to  Fenelon,  who,  for  eight  years,  had  given 
his  time  and  pains  to  the  training  of  his  petit- 
Prince,  without  praise  or  pence,  so  quietly  content 
that  even  Beauvilliers,  his  bosom  friend,  Minister 
of  finance,  never  thought  of  augmenting  his  re- 
sources. A  king,  in  one  breath,  can  reward  long 
arrears  of  service.  It  was,  however,  seeing  the 
terms  they  were  on,  scarcely  possible  to  make 
Fenelon  the  hierarchic  superior  of  Bossuet;  and  the 
bishopric  of  Meaux  lies  in  the  archdiocese  of  Paris. 
Besides,  Madame  de  Maintenon,  who  was  marrying 
a  favourite  niece  into  the  house  of  Noailles,  desired 
the  archbishopric  for  the  cardinal  of  that  name. 
And  the  King  had  never  liked  Fenelon.  So,  in  the 
spring  of  1695,  he  paid  his  debt  by  handsomely 
relegating  his  grandson's  tutor  well  out  of  the  way 
among  the  Protestant  and  Jansenist  Belgians, 
extremi  hominum,  in  the  newly  annexed  diocese  of 
Cambrai. 

It  was  ingenious  to  make  so  faithful  a  servant  a 
prince-archbishop  while  eliminating  a  mystic,  and 
to  conciliate  a  hostile  province  by  sending  as  Pro- 
consul the  enchanter  and  the  peacemaker  that 
Fenelon  was  at  heart.  By  the  same  stroke,  the 
King  removed  from  the  presence  of  his  grandson  a 
tutor  whose  religious  principles  appeared  at  least 
dubious,  and  yet,  by  making  an  archbishop  of  the 
man,  extinguished  all  suggestions  that  the  Prince 
had  had  a  heretic  at  his  ear.  So  Fenelon  found 
himself,  in  the  summer  of  1695,  no  longer  an  unpaid 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK       173 

teacher,  but  a  Prince  of  the  Church.  Yet  that  had 
been  favour :  this  was  disgrace  disguised.  In  the 
chapel  of  Saint-Cyr,  at  the  laying-on  of  hands,  the 
prelate  saw  himself  surrounded  by  his  flock,  and 
Bossuet  anointed  him.  But  the  archbishop  knew 
what  had  befallen  him,  nor  needed  to  point  the 
moral  the  long  faces  of  his  friends. 

"  La  nomination  de  1'Abbe  de  Fenelon  a  Cambrai 
jeta  ses  amis  dans  la  consternation;  ils  prirent  cela 
pour  un  honnete  exil,  car  ils  le  destinerent  a  Paris 
et  au  ministere."  So  writes  the  malicious  but  well- 
informed  observer  whose  anonymous  notes  have 
recently  been  published  by  M.  Eugene  Griselle.1 
.  .  .  Fenelon  had  thought  his  life's  work  lay  at 
court — in  the  court,  not  of  it — in  the  school-room 
of  P.P. — among  the  ladies  at  Saint-Cyr — in  the 
Beauvilliers'  quiet  salon  "  au  coin  de  la  petite 
cheminee  de  marbre  blanc."  The  secret  domination 
which  he  had  there  enjoyed  fulfilled  the  strongest 
aspiration  of  his  nature.  Now,  he  felt,  it  was  all 
over ! 

The  sad  dignity  of  his  manner  showed  that  he 
was  not  the  dupe  of  a  title.  "  M.  de  Fenelon," 
writes  Madame  de  Sevigne,  "showed  some  surprise 
at  this  present  of  an  archbishopric,  and  in  thank- 
ing the  King  he  marked  clearly  that  he  could  not 
appreciate  the  recompense  that  caused  him  to  absent 
himself  from  M.  le  Due  de  Bourgogne.  The  King 

1  Eugene  Griselle,  Pension:  Etudes  Historiquts,  Hachette, 
IQXX. 


174  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

replied  that  he  had  no  intention  of  obliging  the 
prelate  to  a  perpetual  residence;  but  this  honour- 
able archbishop  replied  that  the  Council  of  Trent 
allowed  at  most  some  three  months  in  the  year  for 
leave  of  absence,  and  that  only  for  private  and 
particular  affairs.  '  There  is  none/  said  the  King, 
'  more  important  than  the  education  of  a  prince/ 
and  consented  that  he  should  remain  nine  months 
of  the  year  at  Cambrai  and  three  at  Versailles.  M. 
de  Fenelon  then  resigned  into  the  King's  hands  his 
one  and  only  Abbey.  M.  le  Tellier,  Bishop  of 
Rheims,  says  that,  with  M.  de  Fenelon's  opinions, 
it  was  the  right  thing  to  do,  but  that,  thinking  as  he 
himself  does,  there  is  no  harm  in  keeping  his 
several  benefices." 

Fenelon's  disinterestedness,  always  remarkable, 
was  here  doubtless  heightened  by  a  point  of  anger : 
"  Pecunia  tua  tecum  sit !  "  He  left  the  court. 
With  the  faithful  Langeron  he  went  into  exile.  He 
scarcely  was  installed  in  his  palace  of  Cambrai  when 
he  heard  that  Madame  Guyon  had  been  again 
arrested,  had  been  conveyed,  not  to  a  convent,  but 
to  the  state  prison  at  Vincennes,  where  she  was 
closely  guarded  and  examined  every  day  by  La 
Reynie,  the  lieutenant  of  police.  And  the  cabal, 
which  had  reached  her,  now  took  aim  at  Beauvilliers 
and  at  Fenelon  himself. 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK       175 


XII 

Thus  began  the  lamentable  conflict  from  which 
no  person  of  this  story  shall  issue  without  scathe; 
neither  Fenelon,  who  will  lose  the  favour  of  both 
Versailles  and  Rome  (yet  who,  in  his  disgrace,  by 
his  candour  and  honour,  shall  finally  win  the  esteem 
of  his  fiercest  adversaries),  nor  Bossuet,  whose 
passion  pursued  so  rudely  the  error,  if  it  was  an 
error,  of  a  once  loved  friend;  nor  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  torn  between  tenderness  and  scruple, 
whose  lack  of  constancy  caused  her  to  desert  a  man 
she  honoured  and  esteemed;  nor  the  King,  who  in 
this  affair  showed  himself  no  less  peremptory,  harsh, 
unjust  than  in  the  disgrace  of  Fouquet;  nor  Madame 
Guyon,  henceforth  a  captive  or  an  exile  till  the  end 
of  her  days.  .  .  . 

Madame  de  Maintenon  had  her  share  in  the  catas- 
trophe. The  King  did  not  spare  her,  as  to  her 
blind  infatuation  for  Fenelon,  and  blamed  her  for 
the  inconsequence  of  having  let  him  name  as  prince- 
archbishop  "un  homme  qui  pouvait  former  dans 
la  cour  un  grand  parti."  It  was  their  one  dispute 
(and  it  went  near  to  her  disgrace)  in  an  intimacy 
which  was  to  last  for  thirty  years.  Madame  de 
Maintenon  was  in  peril !  Alarmed  beyond  expres- 
sion, the  anxious  Egeria  fell  ill,  and  thought  her- 
self indeed  at  death's  door.  It  was  then  that  the 
Bishop  of  Chartres  intervened  and  wrote  to  the 


176  THE   FRENCH    IDEAL 

King :  "  Rendez  votre  confiance  a  cette  excellente 
compagne,  pleine  de  Pesprit  de  Dieu.  .  .  .  Je 
connais  le  fond  de  son  cceur :  Elle  ne  vous  trom- 
pera  jamais  si  elle  n'est  trompee  elle-meme."  And 
Louis  XIV,  the  irate  Ahasuerus,  consented  to 
unbend,  visited  Esther  sick,  soothed  her  with  his 
sublime  forgiveness,  and  said  like  some  affable 
archangel :  "  Eh  bien,  Madame,  faudra-t-il  que 
nous  vous  voyions  mourir  pour  cette  affaire-la  ?  "  l 

Meanwhile  "cette  affaire-la"  filled  all  the  court, 
filled  France,  filled  Rome  with  the  bruit  of  its  fray, 
and  La  Fontaine  was  the  only  man  who  dared  to 
find  the  question  of  the  Quietists  a  nuisance !  The 
seventeenth  century  had  an  appetite  for  theological 
controversy,  a  passion  for  the  unity  of  the  Church, 
which  we  of  a  later  day  may  dimly  understand  by 
recalling  the  Russia  of  the  later  nineteenth  century, 
where  Pobiedonostsef  was  the  Bossuet  of  Alexander. 
France  was  divided  as  to  whether  charity  should  be 
a  pure  outgoing  of  the  soul,  with  no  pious  after- 
thought, no  care  of  merit  to  be  earned,  or  heavenly 
bliss  to  be  enjoyed  (as  Fenelon  maintained);  or 
whether  (as  Bossuet  held)  every  action  of  the 
Christian  should  be  rooted  in  the  hope  of  an  eternal 
recompense.  "  Love  God  !  "  said  the  one.  "  Save 
thy  soul !  "  cried  the  other,  and  they  fell  by  the  ears 
like  angry  children.  In  1695,  when  Bossuet  had 
confessed  to  Fenelon  his  ignorance  of  the  mystics, 
the  younger  priest  had  made  for  his  senior  an 

1  Th.  Lavallee,  Madame  de  Maintenon  et  Saint- Cyr, 


FfiNELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK       177 

anthology  of  extracts,  with  a  view  of  persuading 
him  that  "tous  les  mystiques  exagerent,"  and 
Madame  Guyon  no  more  than  her  great  forerunners. 
Bossuet's  stern  sense  had  resisted  all  persuasion; 
he  was  not  called  upon  to  pronounce  in  the  case  of 
Saint  Theresa  or  Saint  Francis  de  Sales;  he  was 
appointed  a  judge  over  Madame  Guyon,  and  he 
condemned  her,  with  a  weight,  a  brutality,  an  irony 
(and  even  a  violation  of  confidence),  which  belied 
his  earlier  kindness  to  the  poor  lady.  Even  Abbe 
Fleury,  who,  wise  man,  loved  equally  both  Bossuet 
and  Fenelon,  admitted  "qu'il  y  avoit  eu  un  peu 
de  passion  dans  la  conduite  de  M.  de  Meaux." 
Bossuet,  constantly  supreme,  was  irritated  by 
opposition.  Fenelon,  less  vehement,  was  hardly 
less  bitter :  "  M.  de  Meaux  regarde  comme  un 
outrage  que  j'ai  consulte  les  autres  sans  le  consulter. 
Ne  le  considerer  pas,  c'est  rompre  1'unite."  This 
fine  rapier  thrust  touched  the  core  of  the  case,  and 
justified  the  remark  of  Madame  de  Maintenon  that 
M.  de  Meaux  was  the  greatest  theologian  alive,  and 
M.  de  Cambrai  "  le  plus  bel  esprit."  "  Le  plus  bel 
esprit,  et  le  plus  chimerique  de  mon  royaume," 
declared  the  King. 

Those  notes  and  extracts  which  he  had  made  for 
Bossuet  seemed  to  Fenelon  an  admirable  defence 
of  Madame  Guyon,  and  he  decided  to  publish  them 
under  the  title  "  Explication  des  Maximes  des 
Saints  sur  la  Vie  interieure."  He  knew  that  Bossuet 
was  preparing  a  "  Relation  du  Quietisme."  Absent 


178  THE   FRENCH    IDEAL 

himself  at  Cambrai,  he  had  left  in  Paris  another 
self,  the  Due  de  Chevreuse,  who  waited  on  the  press 
night  and  day,  sleeping  on  a  camp  bed  in  a  corner 
of  the  printing  office,  near  the  Hotel  de  Luynes. 
The  Maximes  des  Saints  (the  first  edition  lies  before 
me  as  I  write)  appeared  in  January  1697,  at  tne 
Librairie  de  Messeigneurs  les  Enfans  de  France, 
on  the  Quai  des  Augustins.  A  treasure-trove  for 
the  bibliophile,  the  volume  to-day  has  little  merit 
save  its  rarity.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  the  scandal, 
the  enthusiasm,  the  devotion,  the  fury  which  it 
created  little  over  two  hundred  years  ago.  Perhaps 
only  those  who  have  lived  through  the  "Affaire 
Dreyfus"  can  understand  to-day  the  battle  that 
raged  round  the  Maximes  des  Saints;  the  King 
openly  siding  with  Bossuet  against  Fenelon,  the 
Pope  timidly  partial  to  the  archbishop,  the  prelates 
of  France  raging  and  rankling  variously,  the  court 
divided.  "On  ne  parlait  d'autre  chose  j usque  chez 
les  dames."  The  pages  of  D'Aguesseau  (who 
believed  all  this  Quietism  the  mysterious  shibboleth 
of  a  political  syndicate  inspired  by  M.  de  Cambrai), 
the  letters  and  memoirs  of  Madame  de  Sevigne,  of 
Saint-Simon,  help  us  to  recapture  that  evaporated 
fervour.  There  is  a  certain  drive  which  the  young 
Saint-Simon  takes,  with  the  Dukes  of  Bellevue, 
Chevreuse,  and  Beauvilliers,  in  the  Park  of  Ver- 
sailles, which  faintly  recalls  a  famous  design  of 
Forain's :  Us  en  ont  -parle  !  They  also  spoke  of 
their  Affair,  and  Saint- Simon  (suffocating  between 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK       179 

the  respect  due  to  his  elders  and  his  indignation  at 
their  opinions)  stopped  the  carriage — 

If  Je  leur  dis  done,  naivement,  que  je  sentois  bien 
que  ce  n'etoit  pas  a  moi,  a  mon  age,  a  exiger  qu'ils 
se  tussent ;  mais  qu'a  tout  age  on  pouvoit  sortir  d'un 
carosse !  " 

XIII 

The  King,  they  said,  was  for  Bossuet,  and  Rome 
for  Fenelon;  and  conflict  raged  between  these  new 
Guelfs  and  these  new  Ghibellines.  Europe  was 
divided  as  to  the  heresy  or  saintliness  of  one  tiny 
volume,  the  Maximes  des  Saints.  And  yet,  as 
Bossuet's  brother  quaintly  observed — 

"  Sans  M.  de  Meaux,  il  auroit  peut-etre  passe 
sans  qu'on  y  cut  fait  reflexion."  * 

Fenelon  in  his  book  had  one  little  phrase  saying 
that  on  the  Cross  Jesus  had  suffered  in  the  body, 
but  triumphed  in  the  soul;  and  these  words — 
wrested  to  mean  the  dissociation  of  matter  and  spirit 
—supplied  the  Bossuetists  with  a  pretext  for  accus- 
ing the  exquisite  archbishop  of  that  separation 
between  the  Higher  and  the  Lower  Man  which 
cloaked  the  shamefullest  excesses  of  the  baser 
mystics.  They  spoke  of  his  intimacy  with  Madame 
Guyon  and  smiled  meaningly:  "  Les  malins  ajou- 
tent  que  Madame  Guyon,  qui  a  ete  fort  belle,  a  les 
plus  belles  mains  et  la  plus  belle  peau  qui  se  puisse, 

1  Lettres  sur  la  Quietisms.     See  Griselle,  op.  cit.,  99  et  seq. 


N  2 


180  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

qu'elle  n'a  pas  50  ans  et  est  en  bon  point." 1 
Bossuet  wrote  his  famous  phrase  :  "  si  cette  Priscille 
n'a  pas  trouve  son  Montan  pour  la  defendre  "  ;  and, 
from  Versailles  to  Paris,  in  1698,  every  one  knew 
that  Montanus  was  a  heretic — nay,  a  heresiarch— 
who  had  formed  a  secret  plan  to  renew  Chris- 
tianity, in  a  more  perfect  law;  yet  who  (tripped  up 
by  passion)  seduced  two  married  women,  and  took 
them  from  their  homes  to  prophetise  and  preach 
with  him  a  heresy.  "  M.  de  Cambrai  a  produit  un 
beau  livre  pour  soutenir  Madame  Guyon,  c'est  un 
de  ses  premiers  chevaliers,"  wrote  the  Abbe  Bossuet 
(the  bishop's  nephew  and  agent)  from  Rome ;  and  he 
goes  on  to  say  that  the  doctrine  of  Pure  Love  is 
spreading  far  and  wide  at  Cambrai,  but  that  the 
Pope  continues  to  pay  no  attention  to  the  energetic 
protestations  of  the  court  of  France. 

The  King  had  more  authority  at  home.  A  sort 
of  formulary,  implying  an  abjuration  of  Fenelon's 
ideas  and  Madame  Guyon's,  was  secretly  presented 
to  many  personages  at  Versailles;  and  Bossuet 
writes,  elated,  that  "several  dukes  and  duchesses" 
have  renounced  not  only  Madame  Guyon  but  M.  de 
Cambrai !  Already  in  August  1697  the  King  had 
bidden  Fenelon  quit  Versailles.  '  They  are  strip- 
ping the  tapestries  from  his  apartment ! "  wrote 
Bossuet's  brother  to  his  son  at  Rome.  This  was 
disgrace;  this,  indeed,  was  exile.  The  archbishop 
fell  seriously  ill  on  the  road  to  Cambrai,  at  a  day's 
1  Griselle,  p.  180. 


FENELON  AND   HIS  FLOCK      181 

journey  from  Paris,  and  had  to  tarry  six  weeks  in 
the  house  of  a  friend — doubtless  none  too  eager  to 
keep  him,  for  Fenelon  involved  his  friends  in  his 
misfortunes.  The  pious  duchesses,  accustomed  to 
flattery,  felt  a  void  form  round  them  at  Marly  or 
Versailles.  Save  Beauvilliers  (whom  even  Madame 
de  Maintenon  could  not  disgrace)  all  M.  de  Cam- 
brai's  friends  were  dismissed  from  their  posts  about 
the  heir-presumptive.  And  Fenelon's  brother — an 
honest  officer  in  the  Guards,  with  no  opinion  either 
way  as  to  holy  indifference  or  the  necessity  of  earn- 
ing merit — was  cashiered  the  service  and  sent  from 
court  a  ruined  man. 

Saint-Cyr,  above  all,  was  thoroughly  disinfected. 
The  mystical  nuns,  at  least  the  chief  of  them,  were 
sent  away  into  eternal  exile.  The  writings  of  Fene- 
lon, no  less  than  the  rhapsodies  of  Madame  Guyon, 
were  condemned  and  utterly  forbidden.  The  King 
in  person  visited  St.  Cyr,  anH  bade  the  assembled 
ladies  see  that  no  trace  of  a  false  doctrine  should 
poison  the  pure  religion  of  their  house — "  qui  pour- 
rait  infecter  tout  le  royaume,  si  Terreur  y  prenait 
racine." 

Ah,  had  I  the  time  or  the  tongue  of  Sheherazade, 
I  would  break  off  here  to  tell  the  sad,  the  mysterious, 
the  moving  story  of  Madame  de  la  Maisonfort ! 
Hocussed  into  the  religious  life  by  a  real  abuse  of 
power  on  the  part  of  Madame  de  Maintenon — a 
real  abuse  of  prestige  and  enchantment  on  the 
part,  alas !  of  Fenelon — the  charming  canoness, 


182  THE   FRENCH  IDEAL 

turned  nun,  lived  for  some  months,  some  years,  in 
a  state  of  perpetual  exaltation,  consuming  herself  in 
"pur  amour"  as  a  taper  burns  away  on  the  altar. 
M.  Lemaitre,  who  sees  love  everywhere  and  nothing 
but  love — who  writes  of  Fenelon  and  Madame 
Guyon  as  he  might  write  of  Abelard  and  Heloise, 
if  not  of  Romeo  and  Juliet — M.  Lemaitre  has  not 
insisted  on  the  nature  of  the  spell  cast  over  this 
passionate  and  subtle  creature  by  the  character  and 
eloquence  of  Fenelon.  I  own  that  here  I  might 
have  been  more  easily  persuaded.  Cast  out  from 
St.  Cyr,  proscribed,  rejected,  she  asked  to  be  placed 
at  Meaux  under  the  direction  of  Bossuet ;  and  there, 
henceforth,  we  shall  find  her,  always  at  the  ear  of 
the  enemy.  The  great  prelate  listens,  argues, 
edifies,  tears  himself  from  all  his  business  to  con- 
sole and  enlighten  this  extraordinary  nun.  With 
inexhaustible  patience  he  answers  all  her  letters,  all 
her  questions  :  "  il  n'est  rien  de  plus  oiseux,  de  plus 
subtil,  de  plus  vaporeux  dans  tout  le  Quietisme;  il 
n'est  rien,  non  plus,  de  plus  fin,  de  plus  pur,  de 
plus  delicat."  And,  thanks  to  Madame  de  la 
Maisonfort,  little  by  little  the  mystical  idea  pene- 
trates the  mind  of  Bossuet 


XIV 

At  last  Rome,  under  constant  pressure  from  the 
King   of    France,    abandoned   the   Archbishop   of 
1  Lavallee,  op.  cit,  196. 


F&NELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      183 

Cambrai.  .  .  .  On  the  I2th  of  March,  1699,  the 
Maximes  des  Saints  were  formally  condemned. 
The  papal  decree  was  brought  to  Fenelon  in  his 
cathedral  as  he  stood  on  the  stairs  of  his  pulpit. 
The  archbishop  took  the  message  from  the  bearer's 
hand,  and  tranquilly  read  out  his  own  condemnation. 
And,  after  a  moment's  recollection,  he  preached  a 
memorable,  most  moving  sermon  on  the  text :.  "  Thy 
will  be  done  !  "  Fiat  voluntas  tua  ! 

He  accepted  the  condemnation  of  the  Pope,  his 
spiritual  superior,  but  I  doubt  if  ever  he  really 
accepted  the  condemnation  of  the  King — whose 
ignorance  he  had  judged  at  close  quarters — the 
King,  an  average  sensual  man. 

The  sting  of  his  disgrace  was  his  dismissal  from 
his  tutorship.  Since  Aristotle  left  Stageira  to  train  the 
youthful  Alexander,  few  educators  have  bestowed 
themselves  so  completely  on  their  task  as  Fenelon, 
devoted  to  petit-Prince.  He  had  meant  to  develop 
the  beau  ideal  of  a  ruler,  and  disengage  from  a 
violent  sensitive  child  the  future  saviour  of  society. 
Often  in  his  writings  he  recalls  the  example  of  the 
Greek  philosopher;  but  as  something  to  admire  and 
avoid.  Fenelon's  conception  of  the  Magnanimous 
was  not  Alexander — not  a  conqueror.  It  is  not 
the  sovereign  who  should  reign,  he  repeats,  but  the 
laws;  and  in  the  twenty-second  Dialogue  of  the 
Dead  he  makes  hi§  model  monarch,  Gelon,  say 
to  Dion — 


184  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

"  II  ne  faut  pas  que  I'homme  regne ;  il  faut  qu'il 
se  contente  de  faire  regner  les  lois.  S'il  prend  la 
royaute  pour  lui,  il  la  gate  et  se  perd  lui-meme;  il 
ne  doit  1'exercer  que  pour  le  bien  des  hommes.  .  .  . 
Je  ne  leur  fis  jamais  sentir  que  j'etais  le  maitre;  je 
leur  fis  seulement  sentir  qu'eux  et  moi  nous  devions 
ceder  a  la  raison  et  a  la  justice." 

Fenelon's  ideal  of  a  King  is  crowned  with  olives. 
He  insists  repeatedly  on  the  horrors  of  war;  no 
French  author  is  so  completely  anti-military,  and 
M.  Herve  might  find  more  than  one  argument  in  the 
classic  pages  of  Telemaque.  War,  as  Fenelon  had 
seen  it  exercised,  brought  in  its  train  merely  mag- 
nificence and  misery,  demoralising  the  great  and 
famishing  the  humble.  Louis  XIV  went  to  war 
much  in  the  spirit  of  a  knight  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
finding  in  it  the  natural  occupation  of  a  gentleman. 
When  he  had  had  enough  of  it  he  made  peace,  if  he 
wished  to  see  how  the  flowers  were  blooming  in  the 
parterres  of  Versailles  (he  adored  his  gardens)  or 
the  roses  reddening  on  the  cheeks  of  Madame  de 
Montespan.  He  played  war  as  he  played  cards  : 
pleased  if  he  won,  and,  if  he  lost,  aware  that  one 
must  pay  for  a  pastime.  Had  he  been  more  serious, 
more  vindictive;  had  he  pushed  the  war  in  Flanders 
to  the  point  of  gaining  for  his  country  a  northern 
province,  great  enough  to  counterbalance  the  influ- 
ence of  the  south;  had  he  made  Antwerp  a  French 
seaport,  and  Ghent  and  Liege,  like  Cambrai,  towns 
of  France,  the  misery  of  the  poor  would  have  been 


compensated  by  a  benefit  so  substantial  as  to  make 
every  Frenchman  (if  poorer  for  a  time)  at  least  the 
heir  to  future  riches.  But  his  pompous,  pleasant 
mind,  despite  its  soundness,  its  balance  and  vitality, 
was  not  sufficiently  capacious  to  grasp  so  great  a 
scheme,  so  that  Fenelon,  seeing  all  around  him  the 
bloodstained,  leaden  lining  of  war's  bejewelled 
mantle,  preached  to  his  pupil  Peace  :  Peace  on  earth 
and  good-will  among  men. 

The  prestige  of  the  King  (of  the  Roi-Soleil)  was 
so  great  still,  in  the  years  between  1690  and  1700, 
that,  at  every  turn,  Fenelon  set  a  guard  to  warn  the 
child  of  his  mind  from  following  this  delusive  ideal. 
Idomenee  in  Telemaque,  Dion  and  others  in  the 
Dialogues,  are  examples  of  the  Prince  Imperfect': — 
the  sovereign  brave,  impetuous,  adored,  but  selfish, 
voluptuous,  unjust  and,  half  against  his  will,  a 
grinder  of  the  faces  of  the  poor.  Selfish,  above  all ; 
that  is  the  secret  wound  which  Fenelon  is  for  ever 
probing — 

"  Oh  bien  !  si  je  retournois  au  monde,"  cries  Dion, 
"je  laisserois  les  hommes  se  gouverner  eux-memes 
comme  ils  pourroient.  J'aimerois  mieux  m'aller 
cacher  dans  quelque  ile  deserte  que  de  me  charger 
de  gouverner  une  republique.  Si  on  est  mechant, 
on  a  tout  a  craindre;  si  on  est  bon,  on  a  tout  a 
souffrir — "  and  Gelon  waves  him  away,  melancholy 
but  relentless.  "  Non,  tu  ne  peux  etre  admis  parmi 
ces  ames  bienheureuses  qui  ont  bien  gouverne ! 
Adieu !  " 

These  are  sketches,  but  in  his  tale  of  Telemaque 


186  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

we  find  a  full-length  portrait  of  a  king  who  rules 
for  himself,  and  not  for  his  people — and  few  kings 
in  fiction  are  so  living  as  Idomenee.  From  the 
moment  when  Mentor  and  Telemaque  arrive  at  his 
new  city,  and  find  the  monarch  among  his  masons, 
busy  yet  majestic,  animating  all  the  scene  around 
him  with  his  intense  personality,  courteous,  mag- 
nificent, amiable,  infinitely  sensitive  to  all  that  is 
exquisite  in  beauty,  breathing  and  diffusing  a  more 
than  mortal  atmosphere,  Idomenee,  with  his  grace 
of  welcome,  Idomenee  "  avec  son  visage  doux  et 
riant,"  his  charming  voice,  his  gift  of  speech— 
Idomenee  greets  us  as  an  old  acquaintance. 

But  sober  Mentor  knows  that  these  are  not  the 
gifts  which  maintain  prosperity  in  states— 

"  II  comprit  que  les  forces  d' Idomenee  ne  pou- 
vaient  etre  aussi  grandes  qu'elles  paraissaient  .  .  . 
cet  eclat  eblouissant  cachant  une  misere  et  une 
f  aiblesse  qui  eussent  bientot  renverse  son  empire  " 

and  he  says  to  the  builder  of  Salente — 

:'Vous  avez  epuise  vos  richesses.  Vous  n'avez 
songe  ni  a  augmenter  votre  peuple,  ni  a  cultiver  vos 
terres  fertiles.  Vous  ne  songez  au-dedans  de  votre 
nouvelle  ville  qu'a  y  faire  des  ouvrages  magnifiques. 
C'est  ce  qui  vous  a  coiite  tant  de  mauvaises  nuits. . . . 
Vous  ne  deviez  songer  qu'a  1'agriculture  et  a 
I'etablissement  des  plus  sages  lois — a  avoir  beau- 
coup  de  bons  hommes  et  des  terres  bien  cultivees 
pour  les  nourrir."  And  the  builder  of  Versailles 
bows  his  head — 


FfiNELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      187 

"  II  est  vrai  que  j'ai  neglige  1'agriculture  et  meme 
le  commerce.  Je  n'ai  songe  qu'a  faire  une  ville 
magnifique." 

Mentor  and  Telemaque  save  Idomenee — Tele- 
maque  rights  his  battles  while  Mentor  rules  his  state; 
for  the  King,  though  a  perfect  model  of  outward 
majesty,  is  ignorant,  is  feeble,  and  could  not  save 
himself.  Prompt  and  kind,  sincere,  liberal,  upright, 
his  real  qualities  have  been  ruined  by  omnipotence. 
He  is  vain,  jealous,  infatuate,  overbearing  as  a 
spoilt  child;  he  cannot  command  his  passions,  he  is 
sensual  and  melancholy ;  at  the  least  contrariety  his 
tears,  his  sighs,  his  groans  fill  the  palace,  and  will 
not  be  comforted ;  yet,  with  all  this  softness  and  self- 
indulgence  he  can  be  cruelly  hard  to  such  as  cross 
his  whim.  His  honest,  adroit,  mediocre  mind  is 
incapable  of  large  views :  "  il  s'applique  trop  au 
detail  et  ne  medite  pas  assez  le  gros  de  ses 
affaires.  ...  II  a  un  caractere  d'esprit  court  et 
subalterne."  Who  knows?  Perhaps  he  considered 
Mentor  "  un  esprit  chimerique." 

Telemaque  was  not  written  for  the  public.  It  was 
a  series  of  lessons,  composed  to  familiarise  -petit- 
Prince  with  the  personages  of  Homer  and  Virgil; 
to  instil  into  him  the  sense  of  antiquity,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  teach  him  the  whole  duty  of  a  king. 
This  vade-mecum  of  a  Crown  Prince  suddenly 
became  the  novel  of  the  hour,  was  acclaimed  by 
Europe,  and  earned  its  author,  with  so  much  glory, 
a  disgrace  far  deeper,  far  more  personal,  than  that 


188  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

which  resulted  from  the  condemnation  of  the  Pope. 
The  faithlessness  of  a  secretary,  to  whom  the  rough 
sheets  had  been  entrusted  for  transcription,  gave 
Telemaque  to  the  press.  The  book,  which  was 
written  for  a  school-boy,  is  now  again  a  school-book 
— such  is  the  fate  of  the  classics.  But  Telemaque 
when  it  appeared  had  a  very  different  sort  of  fame 
— a  prodigious,  notorious  success — the  success  of  a 
pamphlet  or  a  satire.  The  Protestants  in  exile,  the 
Jansenists,  the  Opposition;  foreign  nations,  once 
vanquished  by  Louis  XIV  and  still  trembling 
beneath  a  sword  which  was  no  longer  steel  but  only 
tinsel ;  and  also  men  of  taste,  everywhere,  sensitive 
to  the  new  perfection  of  a  masterpiece;  lovers  of 
antiquity;  sincere  believers  in  the  inner  life;  ideal- 
ists, philosophers,  and  the  great  concourse  of  those 
who  like  to  read  the  works  of  men  whose  names  are 
known,  especially  if  they  be  lustred  by  a  recent 
scandal — all  this  immense  public  acclaimed  Tele- 
maque'; much  as  in  recent  times  their  descendants 
might  have  praised  Resurrection  had  Tolstoi 
embittered  his  book  by  a  full-length  portrait  of 
Nicholas  II. 


XV 

And  for  years  an  atmosphere  of  solitude  and 
silence  enveloped  Fenelon.  How  did  such  a  man 
come  to  be  condemned  by  priests  and  scholars,  by 
statesmen  and  men  of  honour,  who  judged  him — 


FfiNELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      189 

with  passion,  doubtless,  and  with  prejudice — but 
from  the  depths  of  their  conscience  and  the  height 
of  their  science?  Thus  Galileo  was  condemned, 
and  Joan  of  Arc.  They,  too,  had  judges  not  unjust; 
they,  too,  appealed  to  Rome,  and  their  call  was 
not  heard.  It  is  the  mystery  of  human  judgment, 
the  fallacy  of  human  testimony. 

Fenelon  seemed  to  fall  into  an  abyss  of  silence. 
Bossuet,  not  he,  officiated  at  the  marriage  of  his 
pupil,  his  -petit- Prince.  Once,  years  afterwards,  the 
Due  de  Chevreuse  ventured  to  Cambrai  unallowed, 
saw  his  old  friend,  and  dared  invite  him  to  his  house 
of  Chaulnes — but  that  was  much  later,  and  Chev- 
reuse was  so  dreamy,  so  distrait,  that  in  him  the 
extreme  of  daring  seemed  but  a  sort  of  absent- 
mindedness.  Fenelon,  by  the  King's  will,  was, 
as  it  were,  magically  rapt  away  out  of  sight  and 
hearing  of  that  pious  world  of  which,  for  eight  years, 
he  had  been  the  vivifying  centre.  Never  again  was 
he  to  meet  the  Duke  of  Beauvilliers,  or  the  Duchess, 
or  her  of  Chevreuse,  nor  any  (save  the  Duchess  of 
Mortemart)  of  their  pious  circle.  Never  again  did 
he  meet  Madame  Guyon.  Flung  from  Vincennes 
into  the  Bastille,  apparently  for  life,  she  was  set 
free  in  1703,  and  went  to  live  in  the  country  near 
Blois  with  her  married  son,  where  she  lingered  until 
1717,  "toujours  malade."  A  regular  correspond- 
ence between  such  notable  persons  as  she  and  the 
Archbishop  was  impossible  in  a  time  when  the 
King's  pleasure  violated  the  privacy  of  the  post. 


190  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

At  long  intervals  they  sent  each  other,  through  a 
trusted  friend,  stray  snatches  of  spiritual  verse- 
light,  dancing  screeds  of  rhyme,  which  sometimes 
remind  us  of  Blake's  Songs  of  Innocence.  Dis- 
grace and  exile  had  no  meaning  for  these  mystics. 
They  did  not  seek  to  see  each  other  even  in  secret. 
Did  they  not  dwell  perpetually,  released  from  all 
contingencies,  above  the  things  of  this  world,  in  the 
meeting-place  of  souls  ?  "  II  n'y  a  point  de  distance 
en  Dieu "  (Fenelon  had  written  once  to  Madame 
Guyon);  "tout  ce  qui  est  un  en  lui  se  touche." 
Theirs  was  the  communion  of  saints  wherein  (as  he 
had  told  her)  they  might  penetrate  invisible, 
intangible,  safe  from  the  tyranny  of  mortal  and 
material  things,  "  s'enf ongant  davantage  dans  cet 
inconnu  de  Dieu,  ou  Ton  voudrait  se  perdre  a 
jamais." 

Seventeen  years  of  absence  from  Versailles  did 
not  diminish  the  authority  of  Fenelon.  Absent,  he 
was  present  among  his  faithful  flock,  and  Saint- 
Simon  marvels  at  this  extraordinary  permeating 
quality  of  M.  de  Cambrai,  which  seemed  to  make 
light  of  time  and  space — 

"  Ce  talent  si  rare,  et  qu'il  avoit  au  dernier  degre, 
qui  lui  tint  tous  ses  amis  si  entierement  attaches 
toute  sa  vie,  malgre  sa  chute,  et  qui,  dans  leur  dis- 
persion, les  reunissoit  -pour  se  parler  de  lui,  -pour  le 
regretter,  pour  le  desirer,  pour  se  tenir  de  plus  en  plus 
a  lui,  comme  les  Juifs  pour  Jerusalem,  el  soupirer 
apres  son  retour,  el  Vesperer  toujours,  comme  ce 
malheureux  peuple  attend  encore  et  soupire  apres 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      191 

le  Messle.  C'est  aussi  par  cette  autorite  de  prophete 
qu'il  s'etoit  acquise  sur  les  siens  qu'il  s'etoit 
accoutume  a  une  domination  qui,  dans  sa  douceur, 
ne  vouloit  point  de  resistance." 

What  was  the  quality  of  Fenelon's  submission? 
Doubtless  throughout  those  seventeen  years  it  was 
not  always  identical  in  quality  and  quantity;  more 
than  one  thread  went  to  the  weaving  of  it;  it  was  a 
coat  of  many  colours.  The  editor  of  Bossuet's  Letters 
— a  great  Bossuetist — M.  Levesque,  has  written  in  a 
mood  of  irony  of  Fenelon's  "successive  sincerities." 
The  phrase  is  unjust  if  it  implies  duplicity;  the 
phrase  is  wise  and  human  if  it  allows  for  the  fluctua- 
tions of  a  sentiment  that  lasted  twenty  years. 

The  truest,  sincerest  feelings  adapt  themselves  to 
the  character  that  harbours  them,  even  as  water 
takes  the  form  of  the  vessel  that  contains  it,  while 
losing  nothing  of  its  own  intrinsic  quality. 
Fenelon's  submission  may  be  summed  up  in  the 
phrase  he  loved :  Fiat  voluntas  tua  !  But  it  was 
the  resignation  of  a  nature  naturally  proud,  and 
Bossuet  was  not  quite  astray  when  he  scoffed — 

"  M.  de  Cambrai  continue  a  faire  le  soumis  de 
1'air  du  monde  le  plus  arrogant." 

His  first  and  most  constant  mood,  I  think,  was 
one  of  complete  abandonment,  absolute  detachment : 
a  sense  of  the  fathomless  nothingness  of  human 
endeavour,  the  absolute  power  and  truth  of  That 
Which  Exists;  a  feeling  of  the  unimportance  of  his 


192  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

own  deeds  and  writings,  things  of  so  little  account 
that  they  might  well  slip  his  memory.  The  Church 
had  blamed  him,  and  doubtless  he  had  deserved  this 
blame,  without  exactly  understanding  wherein  his 
error  lay.  He  murmured  to  himself,  no  doubt,  the 
words  of  Madame  Guyon — 

"Je  ne  vois  point  ce  qu'on  y  blame;  je  le  crois 
sans  le  voir." 

Fenelon  was  sincere,  he  was  not  simple.  This 
absolute  submission  to  the  will  of  God  was  traversed 
at  first  by  many  human  impulses,  by  many  a  startled 
wince  of  human  honour,  by  many  a  revolt  of  mortal 
reason.  If  his  own  nothingness  was  apparent  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Cambrai,  I  think  that  the  spiritual 
insignificance  of  Bossuet,  that  of  the  King,  appeared 
perhaps  even  more  clearly  evident !  And  in  his 
heart  he  knew  that,  not  the  Pope  (but  only  Bossuet 
and  the  King)  had  really  condemned  him :  "  Rome 
ne  manquera  pas  de  dire  que  le  respect  humain  n'a 
aucune  part  a  sa  decision,  mais  qui  le  croira  ? "  So 
much  he  did  allow  himself  to  murmur. 

Rome  had  condemned  Joan  of  Arc — many 
another — and  had  reverted  from  that  decision,  had 
re-established  the  memory  of  those  she  had  cast  off 
—had  blessed  what  once  she  had  cursed,  and  adored 
what  once  she  had  burned.  Fenelon  knew  that  a 
papal  condemnation  is  not  eternal,  but  an  affair  of 
opportunity;  reasons  of  expediency  may  prompt  it. 

But  let  Fenelon  himself  explain  the  resistance 


FfiNELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      193 

that  underlay  his  apparent  resigned  obedience !  A 
man  convinced  against  his  will  has  rarely  expressed 
himself  with  more  sincerity — 

:'Je  n'ai  jamais  pense"  (writes  Fenelon)  "  les 
erreurs  qu'ils  m'imputent.  Je  puis  bien,  par  docilite 
pour  le  Pape,  condamner  mon  livre  comme 
exprimant  ce  que  je  n'avais  pas  cru  exprimer;  mais 
je  ne  puis  trahir  ma  conscience  pour  me  noircir 
lachement  moi-meme  sur  des  erreurs  que  je  ne 
pensai  jamais.  .  .  .  Le  Pape  entend  mieux  mon  livre 
que  je  n'ai  su  1'entendre;  c'est  sur  quoi  je  me 
soumets;  mais,  pour  ma  pensee,  je  puis  dire  que  je 
la  sais  mieux  que  personne;  c'est  la  seule  chose 
qu'on  peut  pretendre  savoir  mieux  que  tout  autre, 
sans  presomption." 

Rome  had  declared  his  volume  heretical,  in  the 
sense  in  which  Rome  had  construed  it;  the  Arch- 
bishop spurned  the  book.  He  had  expressed  him- 
self badly — maxima  culpa  !  But  that  was  all. 


XVI 

And  in  fact,  in  his  solitude  of  Cambrai,  the 
heretic  grew  to  be  a  saint.  Like  those  Indian 
prophets  that  increase  in  their  tombs  and  occupy  the 
world  more  completely  after  they  have  left  it — 
demanding  year  by  year  a  large  monument,  a  wider 
temple — Fenelon  at  Cambrai  was  more  than  ever 
the  secret  oracle  of  his  faithful  followers,  and  his 
1  H.  Bre'mond,  Apologie  pour  Fenelon^  p.  184. 


194  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

flock  became  more  numerous  in  his  continued 
absence,  while  the  Archbishop  lived  in  Flanders 
sub  specie  ceternitatis . 

A  human  type  in  its  flower  is  sure  of  our  recol- 
lection. Telemaque,  beside  Utopia,  may  stand 
unopened  on  our  shelves  :  we  shall  not  forget  Sir 
Thomas  More  or  Fenelon.  The  essential  flame  of 
French  Christianity  burns  clear  in  the  great  Arch- 
bishop, soars  high  and  pure,  shedding  more  light 
than  warmth.  Francis  at  Assisi,  Wesley  in  Corn- 
wall, Luther  and  St.  Teresa  are  not  more  perfect 
examples  of  the  spirit  of  an  age,  the  character  of  a 
race,  the  religious  experience  of  a  soul. 

Fenelon  at  Cambrai  continued  to  live  and  pray 
as  a  man  for  whom  the  interior  world  exists  .  .  . 
seeing  himself  and  things  as  in  a  dream,  as  an 
image  in  a  glass,  standing  aloof  from  the  real  world 
and  its  businesses.  "An  invisible  barrier  seems  to 
rise  between  the  outer  life  and  me,  which  keeps  me 
from  desiring  to  mingle  with  it,"  he  says  in  one  of 
those  letters  which  reveal  the  perfect  unity  of  his 
soul;  for  every  line  of  Fenelon's — letters,  sermons, 
notes,  publications,  private  jottings — is  in  harmony 
with  such  a  various  oneness  as  we  may  find  in  the 
orchestration  of  a  piece  of  music — 

;'  The  least  thing  crushes  me ;  the  faintest  smile 
of  fortune  makes  my  spirit  rise  with  a  bound.  How 
mortifying  to  feel  oneself  so  weak,  tender  to  self, 
callous  where  others  are  in  question — so  quick  to 
wince  at  the  shadow  of  a  cross,  so  ready  to  amuse 


FfiNELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      195 

oneself  with  the  flattering  tales  of  hope ! — God 
opens  a  strange  book  before  our  eyes  when  He 
shows  us  how  to  read  in  our  own  heart !  I  am  to 
myself  a  most  unruly  bishopric,  more  difficult  to 
govern  than  the  diocese  of  Cambrai." 

If  earth  seemed  unreal,  Heaven  seemed  farther 
off  in  those  first  years  of  exile.  The  last  purification 
of  eternal  love  is  caused  by  the  apparent  withdrawal 
of  its  immortal  object;  the  soul,  separated  from  all 
its  desires,  persecuted,  ashamed,  censured  for  the 
shadow  of  uncommitted  sins,  seems  to  have  still  one 
refuge  from  the  outer  world  .  .  .  the  loving  arms  of 
God;  and  behold,  they  are  closed  to  it!  Fenelon 
on  his  cross  at  Cambrai  knew  the  desperate  cry  of 
Christ :  Eli,  Eli,  Icmd  sabakthani,  and  in  that  hour 
of  supreme  sacrifice  the  phantom  of  self  expired. 
Fenelon,  in  his  "paix  amere  et  seche,"  in  his  blind 
faith  that  no  vision  glorified,  knew  that  terrible 
season  through  which  all  saints  have  passed,  when, 
as  St.  John  has  written,  "  there  was  a  great  silence 
in  heaven." 

That  state  which  seems  so  near  despair,  so  close 
to  desolation — that  state  of  denuded,  stript,  and 
hungered  faith,  is  not  unblest  to  the  mystic : 
"  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit !  "  St.  Frangois  de 
Sales  has  described  this  condition  of  "  tres-sainte 
indifference''  when  not  only  temporal  comforts  but 
the  benedictions  of  the  other  life  appear  out  of 
reach,  and  almost  inexistent.  Not  to  be  too  much 
rejoiced  in  our  spiritual  joys,  nor  too  cast  down  in 
02 


196  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

our  spiritual  trials  is  perhaps  the  essential  secret 
of  the  inner  life,  and  in  this  rude  school  Fenelon 
learned  to  possess  it  perfectly.  He  had  doubtless 
read  in  St.  Teresa — who  copied  here  the  book  of 
her  own  heart  (we  quote  the  translation  of 
Arnauld) — 

"  Quand  une  ame  entre  avec  courage  dans  le 
chemin  de  1'oraison  mentale,  et  qu'elle  gagne  sur 
elle-meme  de  n'avoir,  ni  beaucoup  de  joie  dans  les 
consolations,  ni  beaucoup  de  peine  dans  les 
secheresses,  cette  ame  a  deja  parcouru  une  grande 
partie  de  la  carriere." 

Fenelon  had  doubtless  often  meditated  this 
passage,  and  he  lived  his  life  in  a  sort  of  serious 
detachment,  accomplishing  its  trifles  with  care,  on 
account  of  their  inner  moment  and  meaning  to  the 
soul,  while  considering  its  trials  and  desperate 
passes  as  trifles,  because  of  that  interior  force  on 
which  he  relied,  whose  mysterious  efficacy  made  all 
things  easy. 

In  this  twilit  or  starlit  region  of  the  spiritual  life 
beyond  the  Gate  of  Tears,  there  are  times  when  the 
exterior  world  seems  blotted  out,  the  world  and  self, 
no  less  than  that  which  stirs  within  the  abyss.  And 
even  as  we  cry :  It  is  finished !  the  capacity  of  our 
nature  is  mysteriously  enlarged — a  new  life  streams 
into  the  broken  heart,  a  life  full  of  tranquillity  and 
peace :  unum  est  necessarium,  et  Maria  elegit 
meliorem  partem. 


FfiNELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK      197 

Such  a  meek  dependence  on  the  love  of  God 
does  not  in  any  degree  imply  inertia;  the  soul 
absorbed  in  peace  may  move  in  a  way  so  free,  so 
natural,  so  unconstrained,  it  almost  seems  as  if  she 
did  not  move  at  all;  the  time  of  our  business  shall 
not  differ  then  from  the  time  of  prayer  or  recollec- 
tion; in  that  inner  silence  which  no  bruit  of  self 
disturbs,  we  shall  work  and  strive  with  success, 
accustoming  ourselves  "  a  faire  les  affaires  meme 
en  esprit  d'oraison." 


XVII 

"Je  ne  suis  pas,  6  mon  Dieu,  ce  qui  est;  helas, 
je  suis  presque  ce  qui  n'est  pas.  Je  me  vois  comme 
un  milieu  incomprehensible  entre  le  neant  et  1'etre. 
Je  suis  celui  qui  a  ete;  je  suis  celui  qui  sera;  je  suis 
celui  qui  n'est  plus  ce  qu'il  a  ete;  je  suis  celui  qui 
n'est  pas  encore  ce  qu'il  sera.  Et  dans  cet  entre- 
deux,  que  suis-je?  Un  je  ne  sais  quoi  qui  ne  peut 
s'arreter  en  soi,  qui  n'a  aucune  consistance.  Qui 
s'enfuit  de  mes  propres  mains  et  s'ecoule  rapide- 
ment  comme  1'eau.  .  .  .  Ma  duree  n'est  qu'une 
defaillance  perpetuelle."  * 

Fenelon,  like  Spinoza  (whom  he  sometimes  re- 
sembles— imagine  a  knightly,  a  Catholic  Spinoza!), 
loses  himself  constantly  in  contemplation  of  the 
eternal — perceives  that  we  cannot  say  to  the  Infinite  : 
Thus  far  shalt  Thou  go  and  no  further — sees  that 

1  F&ielon,  De\V existence  de  Dieu,  II,  Chap.  V. 


198  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

the  Divinity  is  all  or  nothing,  and  that  if  a  God 
exist,  He  penetrates  everything.  And  Fenelon 
believed  ardently,  absolutely. 

"  Je  ne  sin's  plus  ce  que  j'ai  etc — je  ne  suis  pas 
encore  ce  que  je  serai !  "  The  passage  from  one 
century  to  another — always  a  moving  moment  of 
time — accentuated  Fenelon's  sense  of  the  fleeting- 
ness of  human  life.  Age  was  stealing  on  insensibly ; 
without  revolt  the  Archbishop  accustomed  himself 
to  growing  old.  In  1701  he  had  attained  his  fiftieth 
year. 

He  attained  it  as,  in  his  youth,  climbing  the  hills 
of  his  home,  he  used  to  reach  atop  the  rolling 
plateau — 

"Ces  sommets  sont  des  campagnes 
Qui  portent  d'autres  montagnes." 

Nothing  was  finished  !  Life  rolled  on  at  a  higher 
level,  no  less  fruitful,  varied,  and  with  a  wider 
prospect.  There  are  young  saints  more  passionate, 
more  winning,  more  sincere;  but  (from  the  age  of 
fifty  to  his  death  at  sixty-five)  what  saint  or  demi- 
saint  is  more  endearing,  more  noble,  more  irresist- 
ibly attractive  than  Fenelon  in  exile?  Cambrai 
had  been  at  once  his  ordeal  and  his  opportunity,  and 
he  rose  from  his  cross  transfigured. 

In  his  solitude  at  Cambrai  he  had  time  to  meditate 
on  the  distress  of  France,  and  to  relieve  it.  In  this 
extreme  outpost,  harassed  by  frequent  wars,  the 
misery  was  great.  Cambrai  was  but  recently 


FfiNELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      199 

annexed,  and  the  population  (wholly  Flemish  in 
language,  habits  and  preference)  was  hostile  to  the 
rule  of  France.  One  part  of  the  Archbishop's 
spiritual  diocese  was  still  subject  to  the  temporal 
authority  of  the  Empire,  and  the  difficulty,  always 
great,  of  governing  an  unconciliated  province  was 
increased  when  war  time  brought  the  conqueror  face 
to  face  with  the  master  of  yesterday.  And  Fenelon 
the  Frenchman  had  still  an  easier  task  than  Fenelon 
the  Churchman.  For  Protestants  and  Jansenists 
were  rife  in  Cambrai.  The  new  Archbishop  was 
familiar  with  the  Huguenots;  he  had  earned  his 
first  successes  as  a  missionary  in  Poitou,  and  those 
successes  had  been  considerable.  To  insist  on 
essentials  with  rigid  sincerity,  but  to  limit  these 
essentials  to  their  narrowest  expression,  was 
Fenelon's  principle.  Of  old,  in  Poitou,  he  had 
scandalised  Bossuet  when  he  proposed  to  suppress 
the  Ave  Maria,  in  his  dread  of  wounding  his  "  little 
children."  Fenelon  had  known  what  it  is  to  be  con- 
demned by  the  Church ;  he  felt  that  a  man  might  err 
with  a  pure  heart,  and  drop  the  clue  of  truth  while 
safely  enveloped  in  the  cloak  of  the  Eternal.  He 
was  strict  in  respecting  and  enforcing  the  central 
doctrines  of  Rome,  and  his  controversies  with  the 
Jansenists  were  unflinching.  Yet  Saint-Simon,  after 
recording  these  "  grands  combats  de  plume,"  affirms 
the  loving-kindness  of  the  Archbishop  for  all  his 
flock — sheep,  goats,  and  even  wolves  !  None  were 
disquieted  in  their  persons. 


200  THE  FRENCH   IDEAL 

"  Cambrai  leur  fiit  un  lieu  de  constant  asile  et  de 
paix.  Heureux  et  contents  d'y  trouver  du  repos, 
ils  ne  s'emurent  en  rien  a  regard  de  leur  archeveque 
qui,  contraire  a  leur  doctrine,  leur  laissait  toute  sorte 
de  tranquillite ;  ils  donnerent  peu  d'atteintes  a 
Tamour  general  que  tous  porterent  a  Fenelon.  .  .  ." 

And  we  remember  how,  in  a  conversation  recorded 
by  the  Chevalier  de  Ramsay  (Fenelon's  convert 
from  Scotland),  the  Archbishop  of  Cambrai  sent  this 
message  to  the  Stuart  Pretender — 

"  Sur  toutes  choses,  ne  forcez  jamais  vos  sujets 
a  changer  de  religion !  ...  La  force  ne  peut  jamais 
persuader  des  hommes;  elle  ne  fait  que  des  hypo- 
crites. .  .  .  Accordez  a  tous  la  tolerance  civile,  non 
en  approuvant  tout  comme  indifferent,  mais  en 
souffrant  avec  patience  ce  que  Dieu  souffre.  .  .  ." 

An  outward  conformity  appeared  to  him  a  profana- 
tion and  a  sacrilege.  At  Cambrai,  as  in  Poitou,  he 
discountenanced  it,  and  used  all  the  influence  of  his 
state  to  enable  the  more  stubborn  spirits  to  emigrate 
to  Protestant  countries — a  favour  difficult  to  obtain 
in  those  days,  when  emigration  was  an  act  of  treason 
or  desertion,  unless  permitted  by  the  King. 

''  Je  travaille  doucement,  et  je  menage  les  esprits 
pour  me  mettre  a  leur  portee;"  so  Fenelon  wrote  to 
the  Duke  of  Beauvilliers.  :t  Ils  m'aiment  assez 
parce  qu'ils  me  trouvent  sans  hauteur,  tranquille, 
et  d'une  conduite  uniforme.  Ils  se  fient  assez  a  moi." 

"  II  he  courait  apres  personne,"  wrote  Saint-Simon ; 
but  little  by  little  the  quiet  charm  of  his  attraction 


FfiNELON  AND   HIS  FLOCK     201 

worked.  "  Ses  aumones,  ses  visites,  ses  predications 
frequentes  dans  la  ville  et  dans  les  villages,  la 
facilite  de  son  acces,  son  humanite  avec  les  petits, 
sa  politesse  avec  les  autres,  ses  graces  naturelles, 
enfin,  le  firent  adorer  de  son  peuple."  The  deep 
calls  to  the  deep,  and  the  stars  answer  in  glory  one 
to  another.  So,  in  the  things  of  the  soul,  authority, 
constraint,  effort  are  unavailing.  It  is  the  quiet 
force  up-welling  from  some  deep  reserve  at  the  back 
of  Nature  which,  in  a  Buddha  or  a  Francis,  a  Plato 
or  a  Fenelon,  fills  the  fountains  of  the  Eternal.  In 
1708,  when  the  French  reverses  beat  back  the  troops 
towards  Cambrai  and  brought  Fenelon  on  the 
borders  of  the  seat  of  war,  he  showed  the  full 
measure  of  his  spiritual  genius.  Not  only  his 
famished,  war-desolated  people,  but  the  army  and 
the  wounded — all  the  wounded  on  either  side — 
were  welcomed  into  his  fold.  The  country  clergy 
were  ruined  by  the  failure  of  the  ruined  peasants  to 
pay  their  tithe;  the  Archbishop  paid  the  tithe. 
Cambrai  was  full  of  fugitive  farmers  and  shepherds 
vainly  seeking  safety  and  housing  for  themselves 
and  their  flocks.  Fenelon  opened  wide  the  gate  of 
his  palace;  and  the  corridors  and  galleries  were 
thronged  with  camping  countrymen,  the  courts  and 
gardens  were  turned  into  a  stable  yard.  The  Arch- 
bishop said  :  God  will  provide  !  and  by  some  miracle 
arranged  to  feed  them  all.  His  house  was  full  of 
officers  and  wounded  soldiers,  so  that,  at  one  season, 
he  had  daily  a  hundred  and  fifty  guests  at  his  table. 


202  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

He  gave  a  holiday  to  the  young  clerics  in  his 
seminaries  and  turned  their  dormitories  into  wards 
for  the  wounded.  And  the  harvest  of  his  vast 
episcopal  estates  he  poured  into  the  empty  bins  of 
the  hungry  soldiers,  feeding  the  troops  at  his 
expense. 

"  II  s'acquit  I'amour  de  ses  ennemis  par  ses  soins 
pour  les  personnes  retenues  a  Cambrai,  logeant 
aussi  chez  lui  les  officiers  ennemis,  et  repandant  ses 
liberalites  sur  leurs  soldats  comme  sur  les  notres." 
Prince  Eugene  and  the  Duke  of  Marlborough, 
touched  by  so  rare  a  generosity,  forbade  their  troops 
to  ravage  the  lands  of  the  Archbishop  of  Cambrai, 
and  left  intact  his  harvests,  dedicated  to  the  poor. 

XVIII 

One  day  (at  least  some  while  after  the  month  of 
April  1707)  an  unexpected  visitor  knocked  at  the 
gate  of  Fenelon's  palace.  It  was  the  Abbe  Ledieu, 
who  had  long  been  secretary  and  agent  to  Bossuet, 
recently  dead;  and  now,  being  in  Flanders,  he  had 
called  to  see  his  defunct  master's  old  friend  and 
enemy. 

Ledieu  has  left  us  a  picture  of  Fenelon  at 
Cambrai  so  precise  and  living  in  its  details  that,  in 
reading  it,  we  seem  to  share  with  him  the  benefit  of 
the  Prince-Archbishop's  hospitality. 

'  The  prelate  was  habited  in  long  violet  robes, 
cassock  and  gown,  with  the  facings,  buttons  and 


FfiNELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK      203 

buttonholes  of  a  pinkish  scarlet.  He  wore  neither 
fringe  nor  tassels  of  gold  to  his  sash ;  and  round  his 
hat  a  simple  cord  of  green  silk ;  white  gloves  on  his 
hands;  neither  a  cane  nor  a  mantle.  As  dinner  had 
been  already  announced,  he  rose  and  invited  me  to 
his  table.  The  other  guests  were  all  assembled  in 
the  dining-room  in  attendance.  We  washed  our 
hands  without  ceremony.  The  prelate  asked  a  grace 
and  took  the  head  of  the  table,  with  the  Abbe  de 
Chanterac  at  his  left  hand.  The  others  seated  them- 
selves as  most  convenient,  and  the  right-hand  seat 
remaining  empty,  the  Archbishop  signed  to  me  to 
take  it.  The  table  was  served  with  magnificence 
and  refinement :  several  sorts  of  soup,  good  beef, 
good  mutton,  entrees  and  ragouts  of  many  a  kind, 
a  great  piece  of  roast  meat,  partridges  and  game, 
magnificent  fruit,  a  good  red  wine,  no  beer,  clean 
linen,  excellent  bread,  and  a  handsome  service  of 
silver  plate.  The  Archbishop  took  the  trouble  to 
help  me  with  his  own  hands  to  everything  that  was 
most  delicate;  I  thanked  him  hat  in  hand,  and  he 
never  failed  to  lift  his  own  hat  in  acknowledgment. 
The  conversation  was  very  easy,  pleasant,  smooth, 
and  even  gay.  The  prelate  talked  with  every  one  in 
turn  and  left  us  an  honest  liberty.  As  for  himself, 
he  ate  very  little,  and  nothing  of  a  substantial  sort. 
And  once  or  twice  only  he  tasted  a  light  white  wine, 
very  pale  in  colour.  It  is  not  surprising  that  he 
should  appear  emaciated !  Yet  he  does  not  cease 
to  enjoy  good  health.  I  think  a  secret  grief  preys 
upon  him ;  he  looks  mortified.  .  .  .  When  dinner  was 
over  we  all  retired  to  the  great  bed-chamber  of  my 
lord  the  Archbishop.  He  sat  in  the  middle  of  the 
room  in  front  of  the  fire,  having  beside  him  a  little 
writing-table.  Coffee  was  brought  in  sufficient 


204  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

abundance  for  all  present  to  partake  of  it.  The 
conversation  turned  on  the  topics  of  the  day.  After 
supper  those  present  drew  me  on  to  speak  of  the 
death  of  M.  de  Meaux,  asking  me  if  he  had  been 
conscious  of  the  end,  if  he  had  received  the  sacra- 
ments. Then  the  prelate  inquired  expressly  who 
had  prepared  him  to  die  ?  I  thought,  when  he  asked 
the  question,  that  the  Archbishop  believed  M.  de 
Meaux  to  have  been  in  need  of  good  counsel  in  his 
last  moments,  and  of  a  person  of  authority  present 
beside  his  death-bed,  after  having  been  involved  in 
affairs  so  important  and  so  delicate.  And  in  all  our 
talk  my  lord  the  Archbishop  said  not  the  least  word 
in  praise  of  M.  de  Meaux.  .  .  ." 

The  Abbe  Ledieu,  had  he  been  the  sort  of  mind 
to  perceive  such  a  change,  might  have  told  the 
Archbishop  that  M.  de  Meaux  had  died  an  altered 
man.  Bossuet's  pious  egotism,  his  practical  and 
positive  good  sense,  his  violent  sense  of  supremacy 
and  conviction  of  his  own  orthodoxy,  had  dreaded 
and  derided  the  "  pur  amour,"  the  "  f  oi  nue  "  of  his 
great  rival.  The  Augustinian  bishop,  bathed  in  the 
Methodist  sanctity  of  Port  Royal,  had  condemned 
the  metaphysical  ecstasy  of  a  Fenelon.  What  was 
this  murmur  of  an  Inner  Path,  a  Secret  Way,  plung- 
ing the  Soul  of  Man  in  the  Infinite  Abyss  of  God- 
head, whelming  him  in  the  Eternal  as  He  was  before 
the  creation  of  the  world?  Bossuet,  severely- 
startled,  had  called  out  that  this  was  heresy. 

During  the  ardour  of  battle  his  front  remained 
unchanged;  but  when  the  victory  was  his  he  had 


FtiNELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      205 

recollected  the  maxims  of  his  adversary.  In  the 
gathering  solitude  of  old  age  M.  de  Meaux  opened 
the  writings  of  the  saints;  M.  de  Meaux  entered  into 
his  own  heart;  and  so  at  last  from  his  mouth,  from 
his  hand,  as  he  writes  to  his  penitents,  proceeds 
the  very  thought  of  Fenelon — 

"  Ce  n'est  pas  le  plaisir  d'aimer — c'est  aimer  que 
je  veux.  .  .  .  Tout  consiste  a  penetrer  cette  verite 
qu'il  f  aut  aller  a  Dieu,  pour  ainsi  parler,  en  droiture, 
et  s'en  remplir  tellement  qu'il  n'y  ait  plus  de  retour 
sur  nous." l 

Such  was  the  triumph  of  Madame  de  la  Maison- 
f  ort :  the  subtle  and  enchanting  lady,  in  their  long 
arguments,  had  persuaded  the  obstinate  Bishop  of 
the  reality  of  her  inward  rapture.  At  least  it 
appears  that,  in  his  latter  days,  Bossuet  accorded 
to  the  mystics  many  points  that,  a  few  years  before, 
he  had  ardently  debated.  In  the  Deuxieme  In- 
struction sur  les  etats  tforaison,  recently  dis- 
covered,2 he  admits  the  possibility  of  a  faith — a  foi 
nue — stript  of  all  images  and  all  ideas,  beyond 
vision,  beyond  reason,  a  state  that  has  no  name  in 
any  human  language,  a  movement  that  corresponds 
to  an  Infinite  surpassing  our  capacity.  Le  pur 
amour  .  .  .  la  foi  nue — were  no  longer  the  shib- 
boleth of  false  idolaters  to  Bossuet. 

The  bishop's  temper,  his  feelings,  were  more 
stubborn  than  his  mind.  Bossuet  never  softened 

1  See  Henri  Bremond,  Apologie  pour  Fenelon,  p.  474. 

2  Rebelliau,  Bossuet,  p.  174. 


206  THE  FRENCH  IDEAL 

«M  friend  nor  to  that  siren,  Guyonia  sua. 
Some  luiS  before  the  b.hop's  death  Madame 
I:  Maintenon,  teased  by  a  vague  remorse  had  rnu. 
mured  one  day  that  Madame  Guyon  had  been 

' 


Leave  her  there!"  . 

And  Fenelon,  doubtless  remembering  a  1 


to  himself  the  morals  of  Montanus. 

FoTno  woman  ruled  at  Cambrai  m  *****<* 

righteousness— 

"  c       M    He  Meaux  a  combattu  mon  livre  par 

Feu  M.  de  Me    lx  pernicieuse  et  msou- 

prevention  pour  une  doctt  ne  per  Dieu 

tenable,  qui  est  de  toV**£»*  bonheur.    On 

^^tLSCmpher  ce«e  indlgne  doctrine 
a  tolere  et  laisse  tnu  r£duisant  au  seul  motif 

la  ch«;  .  celui 


FfiNELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      207 

XIX 

The  Duke  of  Burgundy  remained  passionately 
attached  to  his  exiled  tutor.  For  the  first  four  years 
of  his  banishment  he  kept  the  King's  command 
and  refrained  from  all  direct  communication  with 
Cambrai;  but,  being  come  to  man's  estate  and 
twenty  years  of  age,  he  broke  silence  at  Christmas- 
time in  1701,  and  profited  by  a  rare  chance  of  corre- 
sponding with  a  friend  disgraced. 

"  Enfin,  mon  cher  archeveque,  je  trouve  une 
occasion  favorable  de  rompre  le  silence  ou  j'ai 
demeure  depuis  quatre  ans.  J'ai  souffert  bien  des 
maux  depuis;  mais  un  des  plus  grands  a  ete  de  ne 
pouvoir  point  vous  temoigner  ce  que  je  sentais  pour 
vous  pendant  ce  temps  et  que  mon  amitie  augmentait 
par  vos  malheurs  au  lieu  d'en  etre  refroidie.  .  .  .  Je 
continue  toujours  a  etudier  tout  seul.  .  .  .  Rien  ne 
me  fait  plus  de  plaisir  que  la  metaphysique  et  la 
morale,  et  je  ne  saurais  me  lasser  d'y  travailler. 
J'eu  ai  fait  quelques  petits  ouvrages  que  je  voudrais 
bien  etre  en  etat  de  vous  envoyer,  afin  que  vous  les 
corrigeassiez  comme  vous  faisiez  autre  fois  mes 
themes.  Je  ne  vous  dirai  point  combien  je  suis 
revoke  moi-meme  centre  tout  ce  qu'on  a  fait  a  votre 
egard;  mais  it  faut  se  soumettre  a  la  volonte  de 
Dieu,  et  croire  que  tout  cela  est  arrive  pour  votre 
bien.  Adieu,  mon  cher  archeveque.  Je  vous 
embrasse  de  tout  more  cceur,  et  ne  trouverai  peut- 
etre  de  bien  longtemps  1'occasion  de  vous  ecrire. 
Je  vous  demande  vos  prieres  et  votre  benediction. 

"Louis."1 
1  Jules  Lemaitre,  Fenelon^  p.  279. 


208  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

The  charming,  childish  letter,  with  its  perfume 
of  honesty,  its  fresh  familiar  grace,  must  have  gone 
straight  to  the  heart  of  Fenelon.  For  some  while, 
no  doubt,  it  had  no  successor :  correspondence  was 
not  secret  at  Court.  And  M.  de  Cambrai  was  taboo. 
All  communications  with  him  were  forbidden,  and, 
though  a  trusty  messenger  carried  to  and  fro  an 
unsuspected  correspondence  with  Beauvilliers  and 
Chevreuse,  Fenelon  was  blotted  out  of  existence  at 
Versailles  by  the  orders  of  an  unforgiving  King. 
The  offence  of  Telemaque  was  never  pardoned. 
Yet,  in  his  death-in-life  at  Cambrai,  the  Archbishop 
grew  more  than  ever  the  secret  inspiration  of  his 
faithful  followers;  absence  and  exile  added  to  his 
prestige.  From  the  depth  of  his  retreat,  Fenelon 
presided  over  every  action,  every  tendency  of  the 
little  group  of  his  followers,  and  the  banished 
heretic,  odious  to  the  King,  was  the  secret  oracle  of 
the  Dauphin's  heir. 

In  1708,  when  the  young  Duke  was  sent  on  the 
Flemish  frontier  to  command  the  Royal  troops,  the 
King  forbade  him  to  enter  the  Archbishop's  palace, 
but  master  and  pupil  arranged  to  meet  on  the  road  : 
"Je  serai  demain  a  Cambrai  sur  les  neuf  heures; 
j'y  mangerai  un  morceau  a  la  poste  et  je  monterai 
ensuite  a  cheval  pour  me  rendre  a  Valenciennes. 
J'espere  vous  y  voir,  vous  y  entretenir  de  diverses 
choses."  Thus  P.  P.  wrote  to  his  master.  The 
King  was  singularly  blind  if  he  thought  that  this 
atmosphere  of  romantic  secrecy  was  likely  to 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      209 

diminish  the  attraction  of  the  exile.  "  II  me  parait 
que,  pour  ne  me  guere  voir,"  wrote  the  lad,  "vous 
ne  me  connaissez  pas  mal  encore  !  " 

And  then,  in  April  1711,  the  old  Dauphin  died. 
Fenelon's  pupil,  Petit-Prince,  became  heir  to  the 
throne.  And  the  King  was  seventy-three.  A  turn 
of  Fortune's  wheel  in  one  night  brought  Fenelon 
to  the  top.  "  Cambrai  is  no  longer  so  out  of  the 
way/'  wrote  Saint-Simon,  "  but  on  the  direct  road  to 
everywhere."  Beauvilliers  could  not  conceal  the 
radiance  of  his  happiness ;  he  saw  before  him,  after 
years  of  persecution,  "une  sorte  de  dictature,"  to 
be  shared  with  the  Duke  of  Chevreuse,  and  their 
idol,  their  oracle,  their  shepherd : — the  exile  of 
Cambrai. 


XX 

At  Versailles  the  new  Dauphin  and  his  friends 
appeared,  if  not  as  the  masters  of  the  hour,  at  least 
as  the  prophets  of  the  morrow.  Even  the  King, 
even  Madame  de  Maintenon,  observed  a  certain 
tolerant  discretion. 

When  the  Duke  of  Chevreuse  set  off  for  Cambrai 
no  reproof  followed  this  act,  which,  unless  secretly 
authorised,  smacked  of  disobedience  and  defiance. 
When,  in  November  1711,  the  Archbishop  returned 
the  visit,  and  went  to  the  Chateau  of  Chaulnes,  the 
King  and  his  consort  still  kept  silence.  The  new 
Dauphin — whose  piety  and  reserve  had  a  short 


210  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

while  ago  appeared  unprincely— was  now  the  dear 
idol  of  Madame  de  Maintenon;  the  King  had  given 
him  a  seat  in  his  councils. 

And  Fenelon  was  the  oracle  of  to-morrows 
monarch !  The  conjunction  at  Chaulnes  of  Fene- 
lon and  Chevreuse,  which  would  have  been  treason 
the  year  before,  in  this  autumn  of  1711  was  a  great 
political  event. 

After  twelve  years  these  friends  (of  old  insepa- 
rable, still  devoted,  at  last  triumphant)  met  once 
more.  How  many  things  they  must  have  had  to 
exchange,  in  mind,  thoughts,  reminiscence,  house- 
hold news !  Little  enough,  no  doubt.  Either  was 
accustomed,  these  many  years,  to  meet  the  other  in 
their  common  centre,  the  hope  of  universal  good. 

Fenelon  had  made  himself  a  heart  as  deep  as  the 
sea— that  heart  "immense  comme  la  mer"  which  in 
his  spiritual  letters  he  wishes  his  penitents— and 
now,  instead  of  chatting  agreeably  of  dear  private 
memories,  he  employed  the  scant  hours  of  his  inter- 
view with  Chevreuse  in  drawing  up  those  "  Tables 
de  Chaulnes"  which  are  the  project  and  the 
prophecy  of  Liberal  France. 

Fenelon's  originality,  that  which  made  him  really 
a  precursor,  was  his  sense  of  the  value  of  liberty. 
To  Bossuet,  as  to  all  the  great  classic  minds  of  his 
age,  there  was  a  beauty  and  a  value  in  mere  limita- 
tion, and  power  which  was  not  arbitrary  appeared 
to  them  a  failure  in  authority.  The  nation  lived 
to  produce  a  King,  not  the  King  to  produce  a  nation. 


FfiNELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK      211 

But  Fenelon  saw  that  a  wise  government  rules,  not 
for  itself,  but  in  order  to  assist  the  free  develop- 
ment of  a  people ;  and  he  was  the  first  in  France  to 
frame  the  thought  of  a  kingdom  administering  its 
own  estates.  Already  in  August  1710  he  had 
written  to  Chevreuse — 

"  Notre  mal  vient  de  ce  que  cette  guerre  n'a  ete 
jusqu'ici  que  1'affaire  du  roi;  il  faudrait  en  faire 
1'affaire  veritable  de  tout  le  corps  de  la  nation  .  .  . 
il  faudrait  qu'il  se  repandit  dans  toute  notre  nation 
une  persuasion  intime  et  constante  que  c'est  la 
nation  entiere  elle-meme  qui  soutient,  pour  son 
propre  interet,  le  poids  de  cette  guerre.  .  .  .  C'est 
la  nation  qui  doit  se  sauver  elle-meme." 

In  order  to  animate  a  whole  torpid  people  with  a 
spirit  of  self-consciousness,  there  is  no  means  so 
sure  as  representation.  Fenelon  proposed  a  sort  of 
Parliament  of  Lords,  Bishops,  magistrates,  mer- 
chant princes  and  manufacturers  "and  even 
financiers,"  "non  seulement  pour  en  tirer  des 
lumieres,  mais  encore  pour  le  rendre  responsable 
du  governement,  et  pour  faire  sentir  au  royaume 
entier  que  les  plus  sages  tetes  qu'on  peut  y  trouver 
ont  part  a  ce  qu'on  fait  pour  la  cause  publique." 

When  we  read  the  "  Tables  of  Chaulnes "  it  is 
impossible  not  to  wonder  what  would  have  been 
the  fate  of  France  if  the  kingdom  had  been  ruled, 
as  early  as  1715,  on  ^vise  and  Liberal  lines,  by  a 
King  of  parts  and  principles,  with  a  man  of  genius 
for  his  Grand  Vizier.  Rare  is  the  spectacle  of  a 
p  2 


212  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

noble  nature  governing  a  noble  nation  in  the  interests 
of  ideal  good.  Have  we  ever  witnessed  it  ?  France 
might  then  have  given  us  that  great  sight :  Liberty, 
without  the  chimaera  of  equality;  fraternity,  with- 
out Cain  by  the  side  of  Abel;  and  tolerance  for 
all. 

Fenelon's  plan  of  reform  is  based  on  peace- 
peace  at  any  price — even  if  that  price  entail  the 
cession  of  Cambrai,  his  own  principality,  the  home 
of  his  old  age.  .  .  .  "Jamais  de  guerre  generale 
contre  1' Europe."  We  know  Fenelon's  principles  : 
"il  n'y  a  point  de  guerre  qui,  meme  heureusement 
terminee,  ne  fasse  plus  de  mal  que  de  bien  a  un 
Etat."  Still,  he  enjoins  a  regular  army — a  small 
army,  and  a  large  militia,  with  a  career  open  to 
talent  and  nothing  allowed  by  favour;  a  small 
number  of  regiments,  but  fully  equipped  and 
manned,  well  disciplined  and  well  paid. 

His  most  stringent  reforms  curtail  the  expenses 
of  the  Court;  they  amount  almost  to  the  suppres- 
sion of  Versailles.  The  words  "  retranchement," 
"diminution,"  " renoncement,"  "reduction"  recur 
in  every  line.  And  what  is  spared  from  the  expenses 
of  the  King  is  to  be  given  to  the  people.  Suppres- 
sion of  the  poll-tax,  the  salt-tax,  the  King's  tithe. 
"  No  more  financiers  !  "  Reform  of  the  game-laws, 
"  a  cause  de  Pabondance  des  betes  fauves,  lievres, 
etc.  qui  gatent  les  grains,  vignes  et  pres."  No 
private  courts  of  justice  for  the  great  lords,  nor 
even  for  the  King  in  the  villages  of  his  appanage; 
save  for  certain  game-laws  and  by-laws,  one  com- 


FfiNELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK      213 

mon    law    for    all    the    kingdom.      And    Fenelon 
suggests  a  policy  of  Free  Trade — 

"  Deliberer  dans  les  etats-generaux  s'il  faut 
abandonner  les  droits  d'entree  et  de  sortie  du 
royaume." 

"  La  France  est  assez  riche,  si  elle  vend  bien  ses 
bleds,  huiles,  vins,  toiles." 

"  Ce  qu'elle  achetera  des  Anglais  et  Hollandais 
sont  epiceries  et  curiosites  nullement  comparables. 
Laisser  liberte" 

Freedom  of  manufactures  "  pour  faire  mieux  que 
les  etrangers  sans  exclusion  de  leurs  ouvrages." 

A  principle  of  local  government  giving  its  own 
Council  to  every  province,  should  counterbalance 
the  centralisation  of  Versailles ;  and  these  provincial 
Councils  were  not  only  to  be  charged  with  the 
voting  of  taxes,  with  all  details  of  administration 
and  police,  but  were  to  be  consulted  on  questions  of 
Empire — such  as  war,  negotiations  of  peace,  and 
projects  of  alliance  with  foreign  powers. 

And,  as  the  King  was  to  be  limited  in  his  tyranny 
by  the  Provincial  Councils,  so  also  was  he  to  be 
kept  in  check  by  the  restoration  of  a  resident  pro- 
vincial aristocracy.  No  more  absentees !  no  more 
"glittering  beings  of  Versailles,"  but  a  nobility 
rooted  in  the  soil.  In  the  constitution  of  the  elite 
we  see  the  hand  of  Telemaque's  Utopian  mentor : 
A  sort  of  Herald's  College  was  to  examine  the  arms 
and  titles  of  all  the  nobility  of  France,  to  exclude 
impostors,  and  to  register  a  list  of  those  whose  pre- 
tentions  were  justified.  A  central  registration  office 


214  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

in  Paris  would  certify  the  birth  of  every  child,  and 
no  branch  should  be  recognised  as  noble  unless 
recorded  in  its  ledgers. 

The  King  should  have  no  power  to  raise  com- 
moners to  the  peerage  save  in  recognition  of  some 
considerable  service  rendered  to  the  State. 

Members  of  the  certified  nobility  should,  like 
princes  of  a  royal  house,  be  forbidden  to  marry  out 
of  their  rank,  sons  and  daughters  alike. 

The  King  should  have  no  power  to  make  princes 
of  his  own  illegitimate  children. 

No  property  bought  or  sold  should  carry  its  title 
with  it. 

The  principle  of  primogeniture  should  preserve 
the  authority  and  wealth  of  the  head  of  the  house; 
while  the  practice  of  law  and  trade  should  be 
allowed  to  men  of  noble  birth,  without  derogation, 
in  order  to  provide  for  the  cadets. 

The  privileges  of  nobles  should  be  purely 
honorific  ...  a  nobleman  should  see  no  shame  in 
poverty. 

Having  thus  hedged  about  the  divinity  of  Kings 
with  a  double  rank  of  aristocrats  and  Local  Councils, 
Fenelon,  at  Chaulnes,  proceeded  to  limit  the  power 
of  the  monarch  in  the  direction  of  the  Church.  He 
desired  a  sort  of  separation  between  Church  and 
State—  "  such  a  condition  as  the  Protestants  used 
to  enjoy  in  the  kingdom  of  France,  or  as  the 
Catholic  Church  possesses  in  the  dominions  of  the 
Sultan !  ''  The  King  is  to  have  no  authority,  no 


FfiNELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK      215 

judgment,  no  'decision  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  for 
which  Rome  is  the  sole  centre  of  unity.  The  King 
preserves  a  right  to  reject  such  Papal  Bulls  as  in- 
fringe upon  his  temporal  power,  for  the  Pope  has  no 
temporal  power  over  sovereigns.  ...  So  Fenelon  at 
Chaulnes,  pen  in  hand,  sitting  at  the  writing-table 
with  his  old  friend  Chevreuse,  contemplated  a 
France  reformed,  renewed,  revived — a  France 
guided  and  governed  by  the  principles  of  Tele- 
maque.  And  they  prepared,  for  the  future,  the  City 
of  the  Common  Weal. 
\ 

XXI 

A  few  months  later,  early  in  17 12,  the  wife  of  the 
Duke  of  Burgundy  died  on  the  9th  of  February, 
the  Duke  himself  on  the  i8th,  their  infant  son  a 
few  days  later.  .  .  .  The  blow  was  the  more  terrible 
that  the  Court,  and  indeed  all  the  kingdom,  at  first 
believed  their  death  to  be  the  work  of  a  traitor.  It 
is  probable  that  Fenelon's  Petit-Prince,  his  wife 
and  child  all  died  of  confluent  measles.  But  the 
nation  suspected  the  Duke  of  Orleans  of  poisoning 
his  cousins  in  order  to  prepare  a  Regency;  a  King 
of  seventy-four  and  a  baby  of  two  years  old  were 
all  that  stood  between  him  and  the  throne. 

When  Fenelon  heard  the  fatal  news  he  fell  into 
a  fit  of  real  despair — such  a  Slough  of  Despond  as 
he  had  traversed  on  the  morrow  of  his  exile  from 
Versailles.  He  wrote  to  Chevreuse — 


216  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

"  Helas,  mon  bon  due,  Dieu  nous  a  ote  toute  notre 
esperance  pour  1'Eglise  et  pour  1'Etat.     II  a  forme 


malade  de  saisissement,  sans  maladie.' 


Petit-Prince  was  indeed  Marcellus.  France,  in  a 
vision,  had  but  looked  on  a  prince  of  whom  she  was 
not  worthy — a  dear  expectation,  merged  too  soon  in 
eternal  regret.  What  would  have  been  the  future 
had  Petit- Prince  come  to  the  throne?  The  question 
rises  ceaselessly  in  the  mind  of  an  historian.  Once 
dead,  the  Dauphin  appeared  a  miracle  of  wisdom, 
patience,  prudence,  charity  and  justice,  a  roi-philo- 
sophe;"  a  new  Saint  Louis.  And  we  shall  never 
know  if  P.  P.  would  really  have  been  all  this,  or 
whether  like  his  brother  Philip  (whom  the  Spaniards 
had  chosen  for  their  sovereign),  he  would  have  grown 
into  a  gentle,  dull  young  king,  not  incapable,  not 
unkindly,  uxorious  and  clerical. 

The  end  of  Fenelon's  life  is  sad.  With  his  dear 
pupil  all  his  dreams  and  hopes  of  reform  had 
vanished.  Death  shook  a  tree;  and,  one  after 
another,  like  falling  leaves  in  autumn,  the  friends 
of  Fenelon  dropped  out  of  existence.  The  first  to 
go  had  been  the  Abbe  de  Langeron — the  companion 
of  all  his  days,  he  whom  we  first  met  at  Fenelon's 
side  in  their  walks  with  Bossuet  when  the  two  young 
clerics  had  admired  and  smiled  at  the  "Sublime 
which  issued  as  from  chinks  and  clefts"  in  the 
most  ordinary  discourse  of  the  great  orator.  When 


FfiNELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK      217 

Fenelon  had  been  appointed  tutor  to  the  Duke  of 
Burgundy,  Langeron  had  accompanied  him;  and  as 
he  had  shared  the  honours,  so  he  took  his  part  in 
his  friend's  disgrace.  He  had  lived  at  the  Court 
of  Versailles  to  be  near  him,  and  he  was  near  him 
at  Cambrai.  When  Fenelon  made  his  will  in  1705  he 
had  named  for  his  executor  this  devoted  Langeron  : 
"ami  precieux,  que  Dieu  m'a  donne  des  notre 
premiere  jeunesse,  et  qui  a  fait  une  des  plus  grandes 
consolations  de  ma  vie."  In  the  autumn  of  their 
lives  (their  fiftieth  year  being  past)  Langeron  was 
still  the  faithful  companion  of  those  long  country 
walks  which  were  the  Archbishop's  relaxation — it 
was  he,  perhaps,  who  helped  him  to  drive  home  to 
the  farmer's  yard  and  stable  the  strayed  cow  that 
figures  so  large  in  his  legend;  and  perhaps  he  it 
was  who  helped  the  prelate  bind  the  wounds  of  the 
soldiers  at  Malplaquet.  In  November  1710,  Lan- 
geron died  in  the  arms  of  his  friend.  And  thence- 
forward, when  the  familiar  name  fell  from  the  lips 
of  the  commensals  of  the  palace,  a  tear  would  start 
from  those  eyes  of  the  Archbishop,  whence,  as  a 
rule,  issued  not  tears  but  mind  and  fire  :  "  le  feu  et 
1'esprit — en  sortoient  comme  un  torrent." 

When  (a  few  months  after  Langeron)  his  royal 
pupil's  father  died,  doubtless  a  new  course  was 
given  to  the  Archbishop's  thoughts ;  and  Chevreuse, 
miraculously  refound,  to  some  extent  supplied  the 
void  left  by  a  lost  companion,  while  an  interest  was 
given  to  the  future  by  the  triumph  of  their  Esdras, 
their  Eliacin.  But  the  death  of  the  Dauphin  tore  open 


218  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

an  unhealed  wound  :  "  L'amitie,"  said  he,  "  coute 
cher  en  ce  monde.  En  pleurant  le  prince  mort,  qui 
me  dechire  le  coeur,  je  suis  alarme  pour  les  vivants." 
"  Ma  tendresse  m'alarme  pour  vous,"  he  wrote  to  the 
Due  de  Chevreuse,  "et  pour  le  Bon  [M.  de  Beau- 
villiers] ;  "  de  plus  je  crains  pour  le  roi ;  sa  conserva- 
tion est  infiniment  importante."  Fenelon's  tender 
anxiety  did  not  delude  him.  Chevreuse,  broken- 
hearted, died  in  this  same  year,  1712.  Beauvilliers, 
stricken  to  the  core,  incapable  of  renewing  his  inter- 
est in  life,  lingered  but  a  little  longer,  and  followed 
his  friend  and  his  beloved  Petit-Prince  in  the 
summer  of  1714. 

"  Les  vrais  amis,"  wrote  Fenelon,  "  font  notre 
plus  grande  douleur  et  notre  plus  grande  amertume. 
On  serait  tente  de  desirer  que  tous  les  bons  amis 
s'entendissent  pour  mourir  ensemble  le  meme  jour." 

And  he  wrote  to  Madame  de  Chevreuse — 

"  II  ne  s'est  pas  eloigne  de  nous  en  devenant 
invisible.  II  nous  dit  d'une  voix  secrete :  Hatez- 
vous  de  nous  rejoindre.  Les  purs  esprits  voient, 
entendent,  aiment  leurs  vrais  amis  dans  leur  centre 
commun.  Leur  amitie  est  immortelle  comme  sa 
source  .  .  .  et  1'amitie  divine  change  la  societe 
visible  dans  une  societe  de  pure  foi." 

In  this  invisible  society,  his  mind  rapt  in  the  com- 
mon centre  of  all  life,  Fenelon  remained  a  little 
while  on  earth,  detached  but  not  indifferent,  dwell- 
ing, as  it  were,  in  a  sort  of  middle  state,  neither 
mortal  nor  immortal— 


FfiNELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      219 


XXII 

Fiat  voluntas  tua!  This  Amen  continually  well- 
ing from  the  bottom  of  the  heart,  preserved  the 
Archbishop  from  any  taint  of  bitterness  or  rancour. 
His  life  at  Cambrai  was,  if  not  as  cheerful,  at  least 
as  open,  as  generous  as  of  old,  and  he  remained  (we 
quote  Saint-Simon)  "  partout  un  vrai  prelat,  partout 
aussi  un  grand  seigneur,  partout  encore  Tauteur  de 
Telemaque  " — that  is  to  say,  a  builder  of  political 
Utopias.  No  one,  from  his  way  of  life,  could  sus- 
pect the  part  he  once  had  played  in  the  projects  of 
France — the  part  he  had  so  nearly  played  again, 
and  which  might  even  yet  be  offered  him  once  more 
by  his  last,  his  most  singular,  catechumen,  the  Duke 
of  Orleans — the  future  Regent :  "  Jamais  un  mot 
sur  la  cour,  sur  les  affaires — quoique  ce  soit  qui 
sentait  le  moins  du  monde  bassesses,  regrets  ou 
flatterie — jamais  rien  qui  pouvoit  seulement  laisser 
soup^onner  ni  ce  qu'il  avoit  ete,  ni  ce  qu'il  pouvoit 
encore  etre."  ...  In  his  palace,  surrounded  by 
officers  and  soldiers,  who  sought  his  benefits,  his 
counsels  and  his  charity,  Fenelon  might  have  been 
taken  for  the  Governor  of  Flanders.  Yet,  though 
the  order  of  his  life  was  so  large  and  liberal,  the 
plainness  of  the  details  showed  the  strict  habits  of 
the  priest. 

His  hospitality  was  unbounded.  In  time  of  cam- 
paign a  hundred  officers  and  more  (chiefly  wounded) 
might  be  lodged  in  his  palace  and  boarded  at  his 


220  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

table.  Nor  was  his  welcome  more  narrowly  measured 
to  the  innumerable  nephews  and  great-nephews  of  the 
ancient  and  needy  house  of  Fenelon.  His  gardens 
ran  over  with  little  children;  the  letters  of  the  pre- 
late are  full  of  pretty  nicknames — Fanfan,  and 
Tonton,  le  Follet,  Panta,  Put.  He  sends  the  red 
fruit  of  his  garden  to  a  niece  whom  they  are  to  cure 
of  the  "  pales  couleurs."  .  .  .  "  Je  suis  affame  pour 
vous  de  cerises.  .  .  .  Je  remercie  les  fraises  du 
petit  soulagement  qu'ils  vous  donnent."  And  like 
a  child  himself  he  is  amused  with  all  the  winning 
details  of  a  country  life  :  "  II  y  a  sous  mes  fenetres 
cinq  ou  six  lapins  blancs  qui  feraient  de  belles 
fourrures,  mais  ce  serait  dommage,  car  ils  sont  fort 
jolis  et  mangent  comme  un  grand  prelat "  —  that  is 
to  say,  they  eat  a  little  salad,  and  lived,  pretty 
creatures,  as  sparely  as  himself. 

His  letters  to  all  these  young  people  are  full  of 
the  most  charming  grace  and  natural  poetry.  Here 
is  one  to  the  young  head  of  the  house,  his  great- 
nephew  the  Marquis  of  Fenelon — absent  in  Peri- 
gord.  A  sort  of  perfume  of  homesickness  breathes 
from  these  pages,  and  we  see  the  tall,  dark,  meagre 
Archbishop,  exiled  so  long  among  the  plains  of 
Flanders,  evolving  his  dear  "poor  Ithaca"  in 
Gascony. 

;( Vos  deux  lettres  du  15  et  du  19  de  ce  mois,  mon 
tres  cher  Fanfan,  m'ont  appris  que  vous  alliez  a 
Fenelon.  J'aime  bien  que  vous  goutiez  notre 
pauvre  Ithaque,  et  que  vous  vous  accoutumiez  aux 


FfiNELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      221 

Penates  gothiques  de  nos  peres.  .  .  .  Vous  me 
priez  de  vous  ecrire  deux  fois  chaque  semaine ;  c'est 
ce  qui  est  impossible  pour  Fenelon,  a  moins  que 
les  postes  ne  soient  changees.  Je  n'ai  jamais  vu 
qu'un  seul  courrier  chaque  semaine  de  Paris  a 
Tholoze  :  il  passe  par  Peyrac.  .  .  .  Sachez,  je  vous 
prie,  si  ma  nourrice  est  vivante  ou  morte,  et  si  elle 
a  touche  quelque  argent  de  moi  par  la  voie  de  notre 
petit  abbe.  .  .  . 

"  Le  2  aout  1714"  1 

And  here  is  another  letter  addressed  to  the  same 
Fanfan,  grievously  wounded  at  the  wars — 

'  Tu  souffres,  mon  tres-cher  petit  Fanfan  .  .  . 
mais  il  faut  aimer  les  coups  de  la  main  de  Dieu. 
Je  veux  que  tu  sois  patient  sans  patience,  et 
courageux  sans  courage.  Demande  a  la  Duchesse 
(de  Chevreuse)  ce  que  veut  dire  cet  apparent 
galimatias.  Un  courage  qu'on  possede,  qu'on  tient 
comme  propre,  dont  on  jouit,  dont  on  se  sait  bon 
gre,  dont  on  se  fait  honneur,  est  un  poison  d'orgueil. 
II  faut  au  contraire  se  sentir  faible,  pret  a  tomber, 
etre  patient  a  la  vue  de  son  impatience,  la  voir  en 
paix,  la  laisser  voir  aux  autres — n'etre  soutenu  que 
de  la  seule  main  de  Dieu  et  vivre  d'emprunt.  .  .  . 
La  vertu  qu'Il  nous  prete  n'est  pas  plus  a  nous  que 
1'air  que  nous  respirons  et  qui  nous  fait  vivre." 2 

This  gentle  resignation,  this  simple  tenderness 
as  of  a  pious  Li.  Fontaine,  this  pleasure  in  the  lovely 
details  of  external  Nature  (which,  in  the  eyes  of  the 

1  "  Fenelon  et  son  pays,  d'apres  des  documents  nouveaux,"  par 
Fortunat  Strowski.     Revue  de  Fribourg,  Juillet,  Aout,  1903. 

2  Jules  Lemaitre,  Fenelon,  p.  264. 


222  THE  FRENCH  IDEAL 

Archbishop,  were  marks  of  the  Maker)  is  flavoured, 
as  it  were,  with  an  exquisite  detachment  from  life. 
Like  a  bird  on  the  branch  in  autumn,  he  twittered  a 
last  carol,  ready  to  take  his  flight  on  the  instant  to 
the  other  side  of  the  world.  In  God's  own  time — 
Fiat  voluntas  tua! — 

"  Priez  pour  moi  arm  que  Dieu  seul  fasse  sa 
volonte  en  toutes  mes  actions,  et  pour  vos  anciens 
amis,  afin  que  1'onction  qui  enseigne  toute  verite 
leur  apprenne  la  bienheureuse  science  qui  desap- 
proprie  Thornine  de  toutes  les  autres.  .  .  ." 

Fiat  voluntas  tua!  The  Love  of  God  is  acquies- 
cence in  the  laws  of  the  universe,  welcoming  every 
event,  accepting  every  cross.  This  doctrine  of  pure 
love  was  not,  for  Fenelon,  a  passing  opinion,  the 
doctrine  of  a  season,  one  mood's  philosophy.  It 
was  the  very  essence  and  lesson  of  his  existence— 
his  gospel,  his  discipline  and  his  ideal.  It  explains 
his  attitude  to  life  :  his  detachment,  his  disinter- 
estedness, something  patient  beneath  his  sweetness ; 
something  melancholy  (or  at  least  disenchanted) 
mingled  in  his  generosity;  which  tell  of  a  nature 
passive  and  suffering  rather  than  active  and 
energetic.  And  perhaps — though  nothing  is  so 
hard  to  analyse  or  explain  as  personal  magic — per- 
haps we  may  add  (with  the  Abbe  Delplanque)  that 
the  secret  of  Fenelon's  incomparable  influence  lay 
in  the  union  of  this  quiet  faith,  this  tranquil  accept- 

1  Griselle,  op.  cit.,  p.  277. 


FfiNELON  AND   HIS   FLOCK      223 

ance,  with  a  temperament  extraordinarily  loving 
and  affectionate :  "  un  coeur,  immense  comme  la 
mer." 


XXIII 

A  legend  (or  rather  an  anonymous  manuscript 
still  preserved  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale) 
attributes  the  conversion  of  Pascal  to  a  carriage 
accident :  one  holiday,  as  he  was  driving  with  some 
friends,  on  Neuilly  Bridge,  in  a  coach  and  six,  the 
leaders  took  fright,  and,  seizing  the  bit  between 
their  teeth,  dashed  to  a  place  where  there  was  no 
parapet,  and  fell  into  the  Seine.  Had  not  the  traces 
given  way,  the  coach,  with  its  drivers,  must  have 
followed  them  to  instant  death.  "  Ce  qui  fit  prendre 
la  resolution  a  M.  Pascal  de  rompre  ses  promenades 
et  de  vivre  dans  une  entiere  solitude." 

This  mood  of  awe,  contrition  and  religious  fear 
is  characteristic  of  the  soul  of  Pascal. 

An  accident  of  the  same  sort  befell  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Cambrai  in  the  month  of  November  1714, 
as  he  was  making  one  of  his  episcopal  excursions. 
The  coach  turned  over  at  a  difficult  turning ;  no  one 
was  hurt ;  but  the  prelate  saw  the  extent  of  the 
danger,  and  felt  the  commotion  of  the  shock  in  all 
his  fragile  frame.  He  returned  to  Cambrai  with 
some  degree  of  fever,  but  not  for  a  moment  had  he 
shown  or  felt  alarm — in  the  bustle  of  the  upset, 
when  his  attendants  crowded  round  him :  "  Bon, 


224  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

bon,"  smiled  the  Archbishop,  "a  quoi  est  ce 
que  je  sers  au  monde?  .  .  .  What  use  am  I  on 
earth?" 

Not  dread,  but  deliverance,  was  the  sentiment 
with  which  Death  inspired  this  disappointed,  dis- 
enchanted, but  ever  unembittered,  soul.  .  .  .  Life  to 
him  was  a  discipline  with  charming  breaks  in  it,  but 
as  a  rule  irksome,  listless,  weary,  tedious,  made 
up  of  absence,  void,  bereavement,  exile.  ...  Of 
Death,  as  we  shall  see,  he  knew  no  fear. 

Until  deliverance  came,  he  was  busy  with  his 
task.  The  heir  to  the  crown  of  France  was  a  little 
child;  the  King  an  old  man.  Fenelon,  in  banish- 
ment, sought  to  safeguard  the  future — occupied 
himself  with  the  conversion  of  the  Regent  (the 
dear  man's  last  chimasra),  and  with  a  project  for 
a  Council  of  Regency  to  watch  over  the  destinies  of 
France.  He  strove  to  enlist  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon's  influence  in  fostering  such  a  Council.  He 
had  written  to  Beauvilliers,  before  the  Good  Duke's 
death  in  the  summer  of  1714— 

"  Le  B.  D.  peut  parler  avec  toute  la  reconnais- 
sance due  aux  bons  offices  que  Madame  de  M.  lui  a 
rendus  autrefois.  II  peut  lui  declarer  qu'il  parle 
sans  interet,  ni  pour  lui  ni  pour  ses  amis,  sans  pre- 
vention et  sans  cabale.  II  peut  ajouter  que  pour  ses 
sentiments  sur  la  religion  il  ne  veut  jamais  avoir 
d'autres  que  ceux  du  Saint  Siege,  qu'il  ne  tient  a 
rien  d'extraordinaire,  et  qu'il  aurait  horreur  de  ses 
amis  meme  s'il  apercevait  en  eux  quelque  entete- 
ment,  ou  artifice,  ou  gout  de  nouveaute." 


FfiNELON   AND  HIS   FLOCK      225 

And  then,  with  a  weary  sigh  he  adds,  in  a  sad 
aside  to  the  Bon  Due,  that  this  their  stay  is  but  a 
broken  reed — 

"Je  ne  crains  que  trop  qu'elle  sera  occupee  des 
jalousies,  des  delicatesses,  des  ombrages,  des  aver- 
sions, des  depits  et  des  finesses  de  femme.  .  .  .  Je 
ne  crois  pas  que  Madame  de  Maintenon  agisse  par 
grace,  ni  meme  avec  une  certaine  force  de  prudence 
elevee.  Mais  que  sait-on  sur  ce  que  Dieu  veut  f aire  ? 
II  se  sert  quelquefois  des  plus  faibles  instruments; 
il  fera  sa  volonte  en  tout." 


XXIV 

In  the  first  days  of  January  1715,  as  the  Duke  of 
Saint-Simon  sat  at  dinner  in  his  house  at  Paris,  a 
young  man  came  into  his  presence,  showing  every 
sign  of  deep  distress.  This  was  that  young  Marquis 
of  Fenelon,  the  Archbishop's  great-nephew,  dear  to 
him  as  a  son — the  "  Fanfan"  of  the  letters — 

"  He  told  me,  in  a  great  state  of  affliction,  that 
he  had  just  received  a  courier  from  Cambrai, 
apprising  him  that  his  great-uncle,  the  Archbishop, 
was  in  danger  of  death,  and  he  begged  me  to  obtain 
from  the  Duke  of  Orleans  the  loan  of  his  doctor, 
Chirac,  and  implored  me  to  dispatch  him  in  my  post- 
chaise  to  Cambrai,  there  and  then.  I  left  the  table 
at  once,  called  for  my  chaise,  went  to  the  Duke,  who 
sent  at  once  for  Chirac,  and  (an  hour  after  Fenelon 
entered  my  dining-room)  the  doctor  was  on  the  road 
to  Cambrai !  " 


226  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

He  did  not  travel  alone.  Fenelon's  nephews,  the 
Marquis  and  the  Abbe  de  Beaumont,  accompanied 
him.  A  second  eye-witness  describes  the  sad  scene 
of  their  arrival  at  the  Archbishop's  bedside — 1 

"  On  the  afternoon  of  the  fourth  day  of  his  illness 
(it  was  the  fifth  of  January),  M.  lAbbe  de  Beaumont 
and  M.  le  Marquis  de  Fenelon,  his  nephews,  arrived, 
having  posted  from  Paris.  He  experienced  a  lively 
consolation  on  seeing  them,  and  wondered  how  they 
had  known  he  was  ill  and  who  had  given  the  alarm? 
.  .  .  Their  grief  was  such  that  they  could  not  articu- 
late a  single  word,  but  pointed  to  M.  1'Abbe  de 
Fenelon,  who  happened  to  be  at  the  palace  when 
the  Archbishop  was  taken  suddenly  ill"— in  the 
afternoon  of  New  Year's  Day.  "M.  1'Abbe  de 
Beaumont  and  M.  le  Marquis  de  Fenelon  had  taken 
the  precaution  to  bring  from  Paris  with  them  the 
celebrated  Chirac,  who  consulted  immediately  with 
the  local  physicians,  gave  an  emetic,  bled  the  Arch- 
bishop a  second  time  .  .  .  but  soon  was  compelled 
to  admit  that  the  disease  was  more  active  than  his 
remedies. 

"  Meanwhile  the  prelate,  who  had  shown  so  much 
feeling  at  the  deathbed  of  M.  TAbbe  de  Langeron, 
his  dearest  friend — and  who  had  grieved  so  sorely 
for  M.  le  Due  de  Bourgogne,  his  pupil — beheld, 
without  a  tear,  the  affliction  and  the  streaming  eyes 
of  all  those  whom  on  earth  he  loved  the  most.  .  .  . 

"  He  suffered  a  great  deal  during  his  last  night, 
and  called  us  more  than  once  to  read  and  pray  with 

1  "Extrait  de  la  Relation  de  la  Maladie  et  de  la  Mort  de 
Fdnelon  par  son  aumonier." — Bausset,  Histoire  de  Fenelon,  iii., 
442. 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      227 

him.  '  My  Father/  he  said,  '  if  it  be  possible,  let 
this  cup  pass  from  me.  Yet  Thy  will,  not  mine,  be 
done  !  Yes,  Lord '  (and  here  his  weak  voice  grew 
stronger),  '  Thy  will,  not  mine  ! ' 

"  From  time  to  time  the  fever  increased  in 
paroxysms,  and  his  mind  wandered,  not  so  much 
but  that  he  was  himself  aware  of  it,  and  much 
grieved  at  it,  though  nothing  escaped  him  that  was 
in  any  way  violent  or  unseemly.  When  the 
paroxysm  ceased,  we  saw  him  join  his  hands,  and 
raise  his  eyes  to  heaven,  resigning  himself  in  utter 
submission,  and  lifting  his  mind  to  God  in  that 
peace  which  passeth  understanding.  This  confident 
submission  to  the  Will  of  Heaven  had  from  his 
youth  up  been  the  chief  inclination  of  his  nature, 
and  was  the  constant  theme  of  his  familiar  talk.  It 
was,  so  to  speak,  the  very  food  of  his  soul,  which  he 
loved  to  share  with  his  intimate  house-mates." 

Fiat  voluntas  tua  /  .  .  .  Pater  mi,  si  -possibile 
est,  transeat  a  me  calix  iste,  vemmtamen  non  sicut 
ego  volo,  sed  sicut  tu. 

And  here  there  comes  on  the  sad  scene  a  third 
witness — not  an  eye-witness  this  time,  but  a  friend 
of  the  priest  who  administered  in  his  last  hours,  the 
great  Archbishop  (despised  by  Versailles,  rejected 
of  Rome)  whom  all  the  land  of  Flanders  revered 
and  honoured  as  a  saint — * 

'  The  Dean  of  the  Cathedral,  who  administered 
the  virtuous  Archbishop,  came  near  to  his  deathbed, 
holding  up  the  blessed  wafer.  .  .  .  Fenelon  col- 

1  Souvenirs  de  la  sceur  Caroline  Glorieux :  Griselle,  Fenelon 
Etudes  Historiques,  p.  293. 

Q  2 


228  THE   FRENCH    IDEAL 

lected  the  last  efforts  of  his  failing  strength  to  raise 
himself  on  his  pillows,  and  then,  his  hands  joined  in 
worship,  his  eyes  fixed  in  rapt  adoration,  he  said— 
*  Yes,  my  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ,  present  in  this 
wafer,  is  my  God  !  He  is  my  Judge  .  .  .  but  I  love 
Him  far  more  than  I  fear  Him ! ' 

"  Je  1'aime  bien  plus  que  je  ne  le  crains !  " 

And  quietly,  almost  unconsciously,  a  little  before 
"dawn,  Fenelon  ceased  to  breathe  on  the  7th  of 
January,  1715. 

XXV 

His  last  conscious  effort  had  been  to  dictate  a 
letter  to  the  Pere  le  Tellier,  the  King's  Confessor, 
repeating  on  the  brink  of  the  grave,  when  none  could 
doubt  of  the  sincerity  of  the  saint,  that  which  he  had 
constantly  maintained  :  his  devotion  to  the  person 
of  Louis  XIV  (Fenelon  was  no  traitor),  his  accept- 
ance of  all  the  tenets  of  the  Church  (Fenelon  was 
no  heretic),  and  he  repeats  in  his  will — 

"  Quand  j'ecrivis  le  livre  intitule  Explication  des 
Maximes  des  Saints,  je  ne  songeais  qu'a  separer  les 
veritables  experiences  des  saints,  approuves  de  toute 
TEglise,  d'avec  les  illusions  des  faux  mystiques,  pour 
justifier  les  unes,  pour  rejeter  les  autres.  .  .  . 

"A  Dieu  ne  plaise  que  je  prenne  ces  precautions 
par  une  vaine  delicatesse  pour  ma  personne !  Je 
crois  seulement  devoir  au  caractere  episcopal,  dont 
Dieu  a  permis  que  je  fusse  honore,  qu'on  ne 
m'impute  aucune  erreur  centre  la  foi,  ni  aucun 
ouvrage  suspect.  .  .  ." 


FfiNELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      229 

In  the  same  will,  after  enjoining  a  great  simplicity 
for  his  funeral,  the  Archbishop  leaves  all  his  pro- 
perty to  an  ecclesiastic — his  nephew,  Leon  de 
Beaumont — to  be  employed  in  good  works — 

"  Quoique  j'aime  tendrement  ma  famille,  et  que 
je  n'oublie  pas  le  mauvais  etat  de  ses  affaires,  je  ne 
crois  pourtant  pas  lui  devoir  laisser  ma  succession. 
Les  biens  ecclesiastiques  ne  sont  pas  destines  aux 
besoins  des  families." 

But  the  Archbishop  did  not  leave  a  great  inherit- 
ance. So  soon  as  he  was  dead,  the  kinsmen,  the 
young  ecclesiastics  of  his  court,  his  many  penitents, 
his  innumerable  poor,  and  all  that  flock  "of  which 
he  was  the  heart,  the  soul,  the  oracle,  the  life," 
begged  some  last  souvenir,  some  trifle  that  had  been 
in  his  possession,  to  be  treasured  in  their  houses  as 
men  treasure  a  talisman  or  the  relics  of  a  saint.  No 
ready  money  was  found  in  his  chests.  The  Arch- 
bishop had  lived  from  hand  to  mouth,  spending  his 
revenues  as  they  came  to  him,  on  the  army  in 
Flanders,  the  poor  of  his  diocese,  the  sick  whom  he 
sheltered  in  his  hospitals,  the  Sisters  of  Charity,  the 
penniless  students  of  his  university,  "and  a  multi- 
tude of  other  distressful  persons."  .  .  .  With  the 
price  of  the  prelate's  possessions,  his  heir,  the  good 
Abbe  de  Beaumont,  continued  all  his  uncle's  alms 
and  pensions,  until  a  new  Archbishop  was  installed 
in  the  sorrow-stricken  diocese  of  Cambrai. 


230  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 


XXVI 

And  now,  let  us  ask  with  M.  Jules  Lemaitre  :  what 
was  Fenelon? 

The  eighteenth  century  saw  in  him  a  man  of  Feel- 
ing, a  precursor  of  Liberty.  To  the  nineteenth,  he 
appeared  as  the  first  of  the  Romantics,  until,  towards 
the  end  of  that  period,  Ferdinand  Brunetiere  and 
M.  Crousle  (pushing  to  its  extremest  consequence 
the  suggestion  of  the  Jansenist  Saint-Simon)  in- 
vented a  new  Fenelon,  at  once  enchanting  and 
sinister : — a  chivalrous  Tartuffe,  a  Don  Quixote 
turned  Jesuit,  a  man  in  whom  there  was  (in  equal 
proportions  perhaps)  both  good  and  guile.  .  .  .  "  Ce 
coquin  de  Fenelon !  "  as  Brunetiere  used  to  cry,  in 
a  mingling  of  anger,  hatred  and  admiration. 

The  twentieth  century  already  regards  as  a  myth, 
and  an  interesting  and  seductive  myth,  this  Fenelon 
of  yesterday.  To-day  we  admire  in  Fenelon  a 
mystical  saint,  or  else  a  moral  hero,  after  the  type 
of  Marcus  Aurelius.  No  less  than  Spinoza,  he 
appears  to  us  exalted  by  the  intellectual  love  of 
God.  .  .  .  Like  St.  Francois  de  Sales,  he  chose  to 
"  vivre  genereusement."  Spiritual  enthusiasm  with- 
out zealotry,  radiance  without  passion,  charity  without 
intolerance,  and  the  selfless  general  hope  of  a 
broken  heart — these  are  his  titles. 

A  cohort  of  brilliant  theologians,  led  by  MM. 
Henri  Bremond  and  Delplanque;  historians,  also, 


FENELON   AND   HIS   FLOCK      231 

such  as  M.  Eugene  Griselle  and  M.  Maurice 
Masson;  the  first  critics  in  France — and  we  name 
M.  Jules  Lemaitre  and  M.  Fortunat  Strowski — are 
occupied  in  restoring  the  royalty  of  Fenelon. 

"Chere  Madame,  j'aime  de  plus  en  plus 
Fenelon !  "  writes  to  me  M.  Strowski  (in  a  letter 
that  I  beg  his  leave  to  quote).  "  Je  crois  que  c'est  un 
tres  grand  poete  dont  la  poesie  n'est  pas  '  sortie ' — 
elle  s'est  transformed  en  idees  ingenieuses,  systemes 
de  devotion  et  plans  politiques." 

For  my  part,  I  think  that  Fenelon  was  a  pure  and 
ardent  spirit  who,  having  grasped  the  interior 
secret  of  religion,  would  have  been  a  saint  under 
any  dispensation  : — Jansenist  or  Jesuit,  Catholic  or 
Protestant,  Pagan  or  Buddhist,  Platonist  or  Laotian 
—proving  in  his  own  person  the  identity  of  the 
deepest  soul  in  man. 

For  the  soul  of  Fenelon  was  "  un  amen  continuel 
du  fond  du  cceur,"  a  perfect  peace  that  passes 
understanding. 

And  the  life  of  Fenelon  was,  in  its  perfection,  the 
generous  life. 


Ill 
BUFFON    IN    HIS   GARDEN 

"II  y  a  quelqu'un  au  dix-huitieme  siecle  qui  est  un  refu- 
tateur  de  Pascal,  bien  autrement  puissant  que  d'Alem- 
bert,  Condorcet  ou  Voltaire :  c'est  Buffon,  c'est  la 
science  de  la  Nature  elle-meme." — SAINTE-BEUVE, 
Port  Royal,  III.,  414. 

"  Monsieur  de  Buffon  se  porte  a  merveille.  Le  corps  d'un 
athlete  et  1'ame  d'un  sage  ;  voila  ce  qu'il  faut  pour  etre 
heureux." — VOLTAIRE  A  HELV£TIUS. 


Ill 

BUFFON    IN    HIS    GARDEN 

I 

A  F^NELON  is  the  complement  and  the  reverse  of 
a  Pascal ;  the  two  compose  a  perfect  image  like  the 
different  faces  of  a  coin.  Yes,  Fenelon,  though  so 
contrary,  is  but  the  other  half  of  Pascal;  and 
Pascal's  real  antagonist  is  Buffon — whose  mind  is 
as  vast  in  its  serene  and  ample  surface  as  the  spirit 
of  the  Jansenist  is  narrow,  intense  and  penetrating 

—Buffon,  who  contemplates  an  immanent  divinity 
in  Nature,  to  whom  Man  is  no  mysterious  and 
terrible  enigma,  but  an  animal  among  other  animals, 
-primus  inter  pares,  related  to  all  the  forms  of  life 

—Buffon,  in  whose  eyes  the  soul  is  the  perfect 
flower  of  the  human  plant,  even  as  the  world  is  a 
rose  sprung  from  the  invisible  roots  of  God.  There 
is  an  irreductible  antinomy  between  the  Jansenist 
and  the  naturalist.  To  Pascal,  the  world  exists 
only  as  a  place  of  ordeal  for  the  individual  soul, 
while  in  the  eyes  of  Buffon  the  species  alone,  the 
type,  is  precious  to  Nature,  "  so  careless  of  the 
single  life  "  —and  Humanity  itself,  in  all  its  ampli- 
tude and  its  succession,  is  but  a  detail  of  her 
sovereign  order. 

235 


236  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

"  Engendree  im  matin,  a  bord  d'un  vaisseau 
qu'elle  n'a  pas  vu  partir  et  qu'elle  ne  verra  pas 
arriver — passagere  agitee  sur  cette  terre  qu'elle  ne 
dirige  pas — I'Humanite  n'a  pas  de  loi  qui  la  lie 
necessairement  au  grand  systeme  exterieur.  Qu'elle 
se  remue  a  fond  de  cale  ou  sur  le  pont,  qu'elle  se 
precipite  a  la  poupe  ou  a  la  proue,  cela  ne  change 
rien  a  la  marche  immuable  :  elle  est,  en  un  mot, 
comme  une  quantite  negligible  par  rapport  a  I'ordre 
souverain  du  reste  de  1'Univers." 

"  Grandeur  de  1'Ame  humaine !  "  cried  Pascal. 
To  him  the  human  soul  was  great,  was  grand,  only 
as  an  avenue  that  approached  eternity,  and  as  an 
affluent  of  God.  To  Buffon  the  human  soul  was 
grand  and  mighty  here  and  now ;  he  was  always  ex- 
claiming :  noUa  ra  delva.  "  L'homme  pense  (said 
Buffon)  et  des  lors  il  est  le  maitre  des  etres  qui  ne 
pensent  pas !  "  And  the  lord  of  creation  appears 
to  him  no  feeble  "  roseau  pensant."  What  marvels 
has  he  not  achieved !  He  is  the  master  of  brutes 
and  birds;  the  fish  in  the  depth  of  the  sea  exist  to 
feed  him;  he  is  the  transformer  of  vegetable  life, 
which  he  renews,  augments,  diminishes,  varies,  and 
multiplies  at  his  own  pleasure;  he  is  the  master  of 
metals,  which  he  snatches  from  their  quiet  death  in 
the  bowels  of  the  earth  and  fires  into  a  strange  new 
life  in  the  flames  of  his  furnaces,  communicating  to 
them  a  part  of  his  own  mind  and  activity.  And  Buffon 
said :  "  L'esprit  humain  n'a  point  de  bornes ;  il 
s'etend  a  mesure  que  1'univers  se  deploie.  L'homme 
peut  done  et  doit  tout  tenter;  il  ne  lui  faut  que  du 
temps  pour  tout  savoir.  II  pourrait  meme,  en  multi- 
pliant  ses  observations,  prevoir  tous  les  phenomenes 
avec  autant  de  verite  et  de  certitude  que  s'il  les 
deduisait  immediatement  des  causes." 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN          237 

• 

Buffon  was  the  forbear  and  precursor  of  all  those 
who  think  they  see,  behind  a  shifting  variability  of 
species,  a  certain  unity  in  Nature,  an  indescribable 
parentage  allying  stone  and  tree  and  wing  and  hand. 
He  believed  in  the  transformation  of  species,  under 
the  influence  of  climate,  nourishment,  breeding  and 
domesticity;  and  the  power  of  man  over  Nature 
seemed  to  him  so  great  that  the  sole  faculty  he  had 
as  yet  to  acquire  was  that  of  absolute  creation — 

"  Le  ble,  par  exemple,  est  une  plante  que  1'homme 
a  changee  au  point  qu'elle  n'existe  nulle  part  dans 
1'etat  de  nature ;  on  voit  bien  qu'il  a  quelque  rapport 
avec  1'ivraie,  avec  les  gramens,  les  chiendents,  et 
quelques  autres  herbes  des  prairies,  mais  on  ignore 
a  laquelle  de  ces  herbes  on  doit  le  rapporter;  et, 
comme  il  se  renouvelle  tous  les  ans,  et  que,  servant 
de  nourriture  a  I'homme,  il  est  de  toutes  les  plantes 
celle  qu'il  a  le  plus  travaillee ;  il  est  aussi,  de  toutes, 
celle  dont  la  nature  est  le  plus  alteree.  L'homme 
peut  done  non  seulement  faire  servir  a  ses  besoins, 
a  son  usage,  tous  les  individus  de  1'univers,  mais  il 
peut  encore,  avec  le  temps,  changer,  modifier,  et 
perfectionner  les  especes;  c'est  meme  le  plus  beau 
droit  qu'il  ait  sur  la  Nature." 

In  Buffon's  view  of  the  world  there  is  an  optimism, 
a  detachment,  a  serenity,  an  Olympian  calm,  which 
recall  the  mind  of  Goethe.  That  universe  of  his,  in 
which  life  and  death  are  constantly  shifting,  playing 
one  into  the  other — that  vast  dance  of  forces  and 
molecules  in  which  the  individual  is  nothing — is 
strangely  modern;  Buffon's  whole  work  is  a  sort  of 


238  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

epic  of  the  conservation  of  energy.  If  some  of  his 
pages  appear  contemporary  with  Huxley  and 
Haeckel,  there  are  others  that  offer  themselves  as 
columns  for  the  temple  of  a  Tolstoi — so  absolute  is 
their  indifference  to  individual  life,  their  disdain  of 
death,  their  certainty  of  the  immediate  reincarnation 
(or  at  least  revival)  of  every  particle  that  lives  and 
breathes  and  grows.  The  ideas  of  Buffon  (although 
his  name  was  superannuated  and  derided)  entered 
into  the  very  substance  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
But  since  then  the  wheel  of  science  has  revolved 
again,  and  to-day,  perhaps,  the  mysterious  universe 
of  Pascal  appears  less  old-fashioned  than  the 
majestic  order  of  Buffon's  sovereign  cosmos. 

Buffon  was  not  only  a  philosopher.  His  systems 
have  had  their  little  day;  his  hypotheses  share  the 
common  fate  of  those  useful  but  temporary  scaffold- 
ings raised  by  the  imagination.  He  has  left  other 
and  enduring  structures  :  his  ideas  on  the  distribu- 
tion of  animals  over  the  surface  of  the  globe — ideas 
which,  in  the  phrase  of  his  great  adversary,  Cuvier, 
were  "  de  veritables  decouvertes " ;  he  has  be- 
queathed us  a  Natural  History  which  owes  its 
vitality  no  less  to  the  style  and  genius  of  its  author 
than  to  the  fact  that  it  was  in  all  honesty  a  "  recueil 
d?  experiences  et  d?  observations"  And,  above  all,  he 
created  a  magnificent  instrument  for  the  study  of 
Life  under  all  its  aspects  and  in  all  its  forms — the 
curiosities  and  transformations  of  vegetable  life  all 
over  the  world;  a  cabinet  of  rare  minerals;  speci- 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN         239 

mens  of  birds  and  beasts  and  fishes : — in  a  word 
the  first  museum  and  garden  of  Natural  History — 
the  Jardin  des  Plantes. 


There  were  no  Botanical  Gardens  in  France 
before  the  sixteenth  century.  Until  then  the  herb 
garden  occupied  a  corner  of  the  potager;  violet  and 
tansy,  borage,  mint  and  poppy,  grew  cheek  by  jowl 
with  cabbage-rose  and  carrot,  in  the  kitchen  garden 
of  castle,  manor-house  or  farm.  The  Renaissance, 
with  its  infinite  curiosity,  with  its  love  of  ornament 
and  sense  of  beauty,  gave  a  new  value  to  the  garden 
of  plants.  Curious  blossoms  were  sought  after  to 
serve  as  models  for  fancy  work,  and  the  "  brodeur  " 
of  Gaston  d'Orleans  established  a  garden  of  rare 
flowers  at  Blois.  Under  the  double  influence  of  art 
and  medicine  there  was  founded  in  Paris  in  1570  a 
far  din  des  Simples  which  became  in  1626,  under 
Louis  XIII — or  rather  under  Richelieu,  the  Royal 
Garden  of  medicinal  plants. 

It  was  at  first  a  herbary  for  simples  and  tisanes. 
Since  the  King's  physician,  Guy  de  la  Brosse,  had 
a  passion  for  botany,  the  garden  flourished;  rare 
plants  were  sent  to  it  from  far  and  wide,  and  the 
wise  amateur  of  bud  and  leaf  gave  not  alone  his 
knowledge  and  his  time,  but  his  own  country  house 
and  grounds — a  little  to  the  east  of  Paris  as  then 
the  city  stood — to  ensure  the  perfection  of  the  Royal 


240  THE   FRENCH    IDEAL 

Garden.  But  Guy  de  la  Brosse  having  paid  the 
debt  of  nature,  the  Jardin  du  Roi  fell  into  the  hands 
of  a  series  of  Court  doctors  with  no  peculiar  turn 
for  science,  and  dwindled  to  a  desert  of  dust  and 
disorder.  A  garden  with  never  a  statue  nor  a  piece 
of  ornamental  water  had  scant  attraction  for  the 
brilliant  generation  of  Louis  XIV.  Sometimes  a 
great  lady  would  send  there  in  search  of  some  rare 
flower  for  her  fancy  work ;  sometimes  a  doctor  would 
stroll  thither  to  compare  some  curious  herb ;  but  the 
garden  was  no  longer  any  man's  hobby.  And  yet 
it  pursued  its  fate.  In  1645  a  royal  edict  decreed 
that  three  doctors  in  medicine  should  hold  their 
classes  there  "pour  y  faire  aux  ecoliers  la  demon- 
stration de  1'interieur  des  plantes."  Fifty  years 
later,  with  Buffon  and  the  Jussieus,  a  race  of  great 
botanists  was  born.  With  the  second  quarter  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  students  of  natural  history 
in  France  turned  their  attention  to  the  long-neg- 
lected Jardin  du  Roi,  began  to  dream  of  the 
chemistry  of  vegetable  life,  and  to  study  the  organic 
substance  of  those  plants  which  hitherto  they  had 
grown  as  herbs  to  dry  in  bunches,  or  grains  to  bray 
in  a  mortar. 

In  1732  the  King's  physician,  Dr.  Chicoisneau, 
had  just  died,  leaving  behind  him  a  wilderness,  a 
little  east  of  Paris.  The  Academic  des  Sciences 
rose  to  the  occasion,  and,  pointing  out  the  scandal 
of  such  disorder,  suggested  that  the  post  be  taken 
from  the  hands  of  the  doctors,  and  confided  to  a 
man  of  science.  The  chemist  Dufay,  an  Acade- 


BUFKON 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN         241 

mician  and  a  student  of  Newton  (whom  he  had 
visited  in  England),  was  chosen  as  director.  A  man 
of  forty  years  of  age,  he  was  full  of  plans  and  pro- 
jects when,  suddenly  stricken  by  a  fatal  illness,  on 
his  deathbed  he  designated  as  his  successor  Buffon. 
It  was  in  1739.  Buffon  was  a  young  man  of 
property  and  parts — the  son  of  old  M.  Leclerc  of 
Montbard  in  Burgundy,  Laird  of  Buffon.  He  was, 
perhaps,  better  known  for  his  taste  in  landscape 
gardening  and  his  knowledge  of  geometry  and 
physics  than  for  any  special  aptitude  for  botany,  but 
he  was  already  a  member  of  the  Academic  des 
Sciences,  he  was  engaged  on  a  translation  of  New- 
ton, had  travelled  in  England  as  well  as  in  Italy 
(whither  he  had  accompanied  the  Duke  of  Kings- 
ton), and  was  acquainted  with  the  experimental 
method.  He  appeared  a  respectable  candidate,  but 
not  an  eminent  one,  and  probably  would  never  have 
been  appointed  Intendant,  or  Steward,  of  the 
Garden  but  for  a  friendly  piece  of  wire-pulling., 
such  as,  under  all  regimes,  has  been  customary  in 
France. 

Buflon  was  eager  for  the  place.  He  wrote  to  his 
friend  Hellot,  the  chemist,  his  colleague  at  the 
Academic  des  Sciences,  a  good-natured  man.  .While 
deploring  the  loss  of  the  defunct  Dufay,  "qui  a 
fait  des  choses  etonnantes  pour  le  Jardin  du  Roi," 
Buffon  admitted,  with  ingenuous  egoism,  that  he 
thought  he  himself  might  manage  just  as  well : 
"J'aurais  grand  plaisir  a  lui  succeder  dans  cette 
place.  ...  Si  on  faisait  reflexion,  on  sentirait  que 


242  THE   FRENCH    IDEAL 

1'intendance  du  Jardin  du  Roi  demande  un  jeune 
homme  actif  qui  se  connaisse  en  plantes  et  qui  sache 
la  maniere  de  les  multiplier."  .  .  .  Buffon,  the 
stately  Buffon,  is  here  as  modest  as  an  under- 
gardener  seeking  for  a  situation. 

Doubtless  Hellot  smiled.  He  was  aware  of  that 
which  Buffon  (just  home  from  his  travels  in  Eng- 
land) could  not  know  :  the  place  had  been  promised 
to  another  Academician,  named  Duhamel,  fortun- 
ately absent.  Hellot  made  short  work  of  Duhamel's 
claims.  He  sat  down  and  wrote  at  his  own  bureau 
a  touching  letter,  purporting  to  be  dictated  by  the 
unfortunate  Dufay  upon  his  deathbed,  recommend- 
ing the  claims  of  Buffon,  to  M.  de  Maurepas,  the 
King's  Minister.  He  put  the  letter  in  his  pocket, 
along  with  that  received  from  Buffon,  and  hurried 
to  the  house  of  the  dying  Intendant.  Dufay  still 
had  breath  in  him;  from  conviction,  indifference  or 
fatigue  he  yielded  to  his  colleague's  eloquence ;  and, 
propped  up  in  bed,  signed  the  letter. 

And  the  touching  legend  spread  that  the  Garden 
occupied  his  latest  thought,  and  that  he  bequeathed 
it  to  the  tender  care  of  Buffon. 

"  II  fit  son  testament "  (writes  Fontenelle),  "  dont 
c'etait  presqu'une  partie  qu'une  lettre  qu'il  ecrivit 
au  Ministre,  M.  de  Maurepas,  pour  lui  indiquer 
celui  qu'il  croyait  le  plus  propre  a  lui  succeder  dans 
Tintendance  du  Jardin  royal.  II  le  prenait  dans 
1'Academie  des  Sciences,  a  laquelle  il  souhaitait  que 
cette  place  fut  toujours  unie;  et  le  choix  de  M.  de 
Buffon,  qu'il  proposait,  etait  si  bon  que  le  Roi  n'en 
a  pas  voulu  faire  d'autre." 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN         243 

Thus,  thanks  to  Hellot,  by  ruse  and  partiality, 
yet  fortunately  for  the  future,  on  the  ist  of  August, 
1739,  Buffon  was  named  Intendant  du  Jardin  et  du 
Cabinet  du  Roi. 

"  Que  dites  vous  de  1'aventure  de  Buffon  ?  "  wrote 
his  friend,  the  President  des  Brosses,  to  a  common 
acquaintance. 

"  Je  ne  sache  pas  avoir  eu  de  plus  grande  joie  que 
celle  que  m'a  causee  sa  bonne  fortune,  quand  je 
songe  au  plaisir  que  lui  a  fait  ce  Jardin  du  Roi ! 
Combien  nous  en  avons  parle  ensemble  !  Combien 
il  Fa  souhaite  !  Et  combien  il  etait  peu  probable 
qu'il  1'eut  jamais,  a  1'age  qu'  avait  Dufay !  " 


III 

For  close  on  fifty  years  Buffon  reigned  supreme 
in  the  Jardin  du  Roi,  and  during  that  half-century 
it  remained  a  garden  of  plants;  a  museum  of 
minerals,  a  collection  of  stuffed  birds  and  beasts; 
neither  live  lion  nor  breathing  serpent  dwelt  in  that 
Eden.  But  within  its  chosen  limits  of  botanical 
grounds,  and  museum  thereunto  attached,  the 
garden  was  transfigured.  Despite  Dufay's  improve- 
ments (which  indeed  he  had  scarcely  had  time  to 
begin),  Buffon  found  it  a  poor  place  enough — an  old 
sixteenth-century  country  house  with  two  wings  jut- 
ting forward  in  pavilions,  a  few  greenhouses  and 


R  2 


244  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

sheds,  the  grounds  themselves  of  no  great  extent, 
and  sorely  hedged  in  and  limited  by  the  estates  of 
the  Abbaye  de  St.  Victor.  In  the  chateau,  where 
Dufay  had  indeed  commenced  several  embellish- 
ments, the  Royal  Cabinet  of  Natural  History  con- 
sisted of  two  rooms,  one  for  the  herbarium  and  one 
for  the  storage  of  medicinal  plants.  A  vast  deposi- 
tory of  dried  herbs  for  the  tisanes  of  Versailles,  the 
cabinet  still  bore  some  resemblance  to  the  store 
cupboards  of  an  apothecary's  shop.  The  days  still 
were  when  Rousseau  could  write  in  his  Notes  on 
Regnault :  "  La  plupart  des  plantes  n'ont  pas  de 
noms  frangois,  mais  toutes  ont  un  nom  anglois.  La 
raison  en  est  que  les  Anglois  etudient  et  aiment  la 
botanique,  et  s'en  font  a  la  campagne  une  recreation 
charmante,  au  lieu  que  les  Francois  ne  la  regardent 
que  comme  une  etude  d'apothicaire  et  ne  voient 
dans  1'email  des  prairies  que  des  herbes  pour  les 
lavemens." 

Buffon  at  once  suppressed  the  private  apartments 
of  the  Court  physicians  (who  had  a  sort  of  country 
house  in  the  Garden  of  Plants),  with  a  view  to 
enlarging  his  domain,  and  in  the  new  space  at  his 
disposal  began  to  arrange  the  collections  of  natural 
objects,  which  year  by  year  increased  in  rarity, 
interest,  and  beauty.  He  entered  into  communica- 
tion with  naturalists  and  travellers  all  over  the 
earth,  and  by  a  stroke  of  genius  created  an  order 
of  Correspondents  of  the  Garden.  These  botanists 
in  partibus  vied  with  each  other  in  sending  home 
rare  specimens  and  herbaries.  Commerson  sent 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN       245 

from   China  the  first  hydrangea,   acclimatised  by 
Buffon  at  the  Jardin  des  Plantes;  the  dahlia,  the 
sweet-acorned  oak,  a  quantity  of  flowers  and  shrubs 
were  thus  introduced  into   Europe;  and  the  first 
plane-trees   in   France  were  grown   by   Buffon   in 
his  country  gardens  at  Montbard.     Commerson  in 
China    and    Japan,    Poivre    in    Mauritius    and   the 
islands  of  the  Indian  Sea,  Dombey  in  Mexico  and 
Peru,  Magalon  in  Egypt,   Sonnini  in  Guinea  and 
Cayenne,  Guys  in  Turkey,  Asia  Minor,  and  Greece, 
Lamarck  in  Germany  and  Holland,  are  but  a  few  of 
the  travellers  who  sent  their  herbals  and  cases  of 
plants  to  the  Jardin  du  Roi;  while  Faujas  de  St. 
Fond   from    Scotland,    Guys    from    Hungary,    the 
Kings  of  Denmark  and  Sweden  from  Scandinavia, 
Frederick  the  Great  from  Germany,  the  Empress 
Catherine  from  Russia,  the  Emperor  Joseph  from 
Austria,  and  numberless  correspondents  from  every 
corner  of  the  earth  sent  specimens  of  stones  and 
ore.     Already  the  vegetable  and  mineral  kingdoms 
were  adequately  represented.    And  Buffon  began  to 
dream  the  dream  of  Bacon  in  his  Novum  Organum, 
and  to  plan  a  coherent  whole  which  should  unite  the 
scattered  elements  of  Nature,  in  order  to  form  an  in- 
strument of  scientific  investigation  such  as  the  world 
had  not  yet  known.  .  .  .  "  Ce  sont  surtout  des  ani- 
maux  que  nous  desirons  beaucoup,"  wrote  Buffon  to 
a  correspondent  in  Cayenne ;  but  the  difficulties  of 
transport  were  too  great.     It  was  easier  to  obtain 
seeds  and  specimens  of  plants,  and,  above  all,  his 
"  chers  mineraux." 


246  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

"  S'il  y  a  quelques  pierres  fossilisees  et  d'autres 
petrifications  a  Cayenne,  je  souhaiterais  fort  en 
avoir,  aussi  bien  que  des  echantillons  des  pierres  a 
batir  et  autres  de  ce  pays.  Vous  me  feriez  grand 
plaisir  aussi  de  me  dire  si  les  montagnes  de  la 
Guyane  sont  fort  considerables  et  si  le  grand  lac 
de  Parime,  qu'on  appelait  le  lac  d'Or,  est  connu,  si 
quelqu'un  y  a  ete  nouvellement,  et  si  en  effet  il  est 
d'une  etendue  si  considerable,  et  s'il  ne  regoit  aucun 
fleuve.  Faites  moi  1'amitie  de  me  marquer  quelles 
sont  les  especes  de  poissons  les  plus  communes  sur 
vos  cotes  et  dans  les  rivieres  de  cette  partie  de 
Tlnde.  ...  II  y  a  encore  un  fait  sur  lequel  je 
voudrais  bien  etre  eclairci,  c'est  a  savoir  s'il  n'y  a 
point  de  coquilles  petrifiees  dans  les  Cordilieres  au 
Perou.  (Correspondance  de  Buff  on,  I.  viii.) 

Thus,  with  a  brilliant,  cursory,  superficial  eye, 
Buffon  in  his  garden  surveys  the  most  distant  parts 
of  Nature,  but  knows  no  farther  actual  journey  than 
from  Montbard  to  the  capital. 

At  Paris  or  in  Burgundy  M.  de  Buffon  loved  to 
live  among  his  plants.  He  had  built  himself  at 
Montbard  a  singular  garden,  a  marvellous  place- 
scaling  the  hill  (on  which  the  chateau  stands)  in  four- 
teen terraces,  from  which  the  eye  discovers  a  vast 
panorama  such  as  Buffon  loved — rivers,  and  the 
cliffs  they  have  cut  through  the  chalk-stone  in  their 
immemorial  course;  vineyards,  meadows,  hills  culti- 
vated to  the  crown,  and  the  little  clustering  town  of 
Montbard.  The  terraces  were  planted  with  pines 
and  planes  and  sycamores,  with  flowers  beneath  the 


BUFFON    IN   HIS   GARDEN         247 

trees,  and  aviaries  filled  full  of  foreign  birds.  And 
Buffon  walked  like  Adam  in  his  garden,  ate  of  the 
fruit  of  the  Tree  of  Knowledge,  and  glanced  with  a 
roving  eye  across  that  plain  which  he  beheld,  not 
only  in  its  present  state,  but  as  it  had  been  when  the 
central  sea  once  spread  its  waves  across  the  fields, 
where  corn  and  vine  now  prospered  in  his  gaze. 

Buffon  walked  like  a  god  in  his  garden — like  an 
immortal  to  whom  many  things  are  permitted.  He 
had  married  a  beautiful  wife,  but  she  had  died 
young,  and  he  beguiled  his  widowhood  in  his 
advancing  years  with  sometimes  a  platonic  passion, 
sometimes  a  pretty  light  o'  love — preferring,  he 
said,  "  les  petites  filles  aux  grandes  dames,  parce 
qu'elles  nous  font  perdre  moins  de  temps."  For  the 
mind  of  M.  de  Buffon  was  constantly  occupied,  full 
of  facts,  full  of  theories,  full  of  systems :  "  ma 
theorie  sur  la  cause  de  la  couleur  des  negres,  que 
j'attribue  aux  effets  du  vent.d'est"  (as  he  wrote  to 
the  President  des  Brosses),  and  his  theory  on  the 
formation  of  the  planets  (fragments  of  the  substance 
of  the  sun  detached  by  the  collision  of  a  comet),  his 
theory  of  organic  molecules,  which  he  held  to  be 
indestructible  elements  of  life  passing  unimpaired 
from  form  to  form  and  from  individual  to  individual. 
For  nothing  was  too  vast  and  nothing  too  particular 
to  arrest  the  serene  attention  of  this  philosopher. 

If  the  plants  flowered  in  Buffon's  garden  at  Mont- 
bard  as  in  Paris ;  if  the  theories  and  systems  accom- 
panied him  everywhere;  the  collections  and  the 


248  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

rarities  were  all  most  scrupulously  reserved  for  the 
cabinets  of  the  Jardin  du  Roi.  When  the  Prince  of 
Prussia  visited  Montbard,  he  was  astonished  to  find 
there  no  cabinet  of  natural  history.  "Je  n'ai  pas 
d'autre  que  celui  de  Sa  Majeste  !  "  answered  Buff  on, 
who  generously  abandoned  to  the  royal  museum  the 
richest  collection  in  Europe.  Sometimes,  when  a 
valuable  set  of  specimens  was  to  be  sold,  Buffon 
would  buy  it  and  present  it,  saying :  "  Que  voulez 
vous  ?  Le  Jardin  du  Roi  est  mon  fils  aine  !  "  His 
passion  for  sticks  and  stones,  his  disinterested 
generosity,  his  boundless  charity  and  care  for  the 
public  weal — in  fine,  something  large  and  lovable  in 
the  nature  of  the  man — redeemed  his  pomposity,  his 
love  of  fine  words,  and  made  "  le  grand  phrasier  " 
(as  d'Alembert  called  him)  one  of  the  most  popular 
figures  in  Europe.  Cases  would  come  to  Paris  from 
unknown  correspondents  (unbreveted  at  the  garden) 
simply  addressed:  "A  1'Historien  de  la  Nature." 
And  during  the  war  with  America  the  buccaneers 
and  British  corsairs,  when  they  plundered  the 
packets  of  the  King  of  Spain,  sent  on  unopened  and 
unharmed  the  crates  of  plants  and  cases  of  minerals 
addressed  to  Buffon  in  his  garden.  And  this  atten- 
tion of  his  enemies  must  have  caused  a  double  plea- 
sure to  the  great  Intendant,  who  inherited  all  Fene- 
lon's  Utopias — his  hatred  of  war,  his  love  of  peace, 
his  belief  in  agriculture  and  the  natural  brotherhood 
of  nations,  his  conviction  that  mankind  should  seek 
its  laurels  in  a  garden. 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN        249 

Year  after  year  the  collections  of  all  sorts  in- 
creased till  they  threatened  to  overflow  the  space 
at  the  Intendant's  disposal,  and  Buffon,  who  had 
begun  his  career  by  evicting  the  Court  physicians, 
saw  one  day  no  course  open  to  him  save  to  evict 
himself.  It  was  not  without  regret  that  he  left  his 
pleasant  home  in  the  midst  of  his  gardens  and  his 
specimens,  for  the  poor  apartment  (or  "  galetas,"  as 
he  calls  it)  which  was  all  he  could  secure  hard  by 
in  that  unfashionable  neighbourhood — 

"Je  ne  m'y  suis  determine  que  pour  donner  un 
certain  degre  de  consistance  et  d'utilit^  a  un  etab- 
lissement  que  j'ai  fonde.  Tout  etait  entasse  !  Tout 
perissait  dans  nos  cabinets  faute  d'espace !  II 
fallait  deux  cents  mille  livres  pour  nous  batir.  Le 
Roi  n'est  pas  assez  riche  pour  cela." 

(Buffon  au  President  des  Brosses,  i  Sept.,  1766.) 

There  was  a  joy,  which  compensated  this  dis- 
turbance, in  spreading  out  and  classifying  an  array 
of  treasures.  So  soon  as  the  collections  were 
adequately  housed,  Buffon  rebuilt  and  redistributed 
the  greenhouses,  furnishing  them  with  massive  iron 
frames  forged  in  the  foundries  that  he  had  built  and 
installed  at  Buffon.  Lastly,  a  new  amphitheatre  began 
slowly  to  rise  from  the  earth.  But  the  direst  need  of 
all  was  for  the  expansion  of  the  gardens — far  too 
narrow  now  for  their  new  duties,  no  longer  restricted 
to  the  growing  of  medicinal  herbs,  but  designed  for 
the  gradual  acclimatisation  of  rare  specimens  and 


250  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

varieties  from  every  corner  of  the  earth.  There,  as 
of  old  in  the  Paradise  of  the  Talmud,  all  essences 
flourished  in  harmony;  the  pine-tree  and  the  palm, 
the  live  oak  and  the  Peruvian  quinquina;  there 
Daubenton's  ipecacuanha  and  Commerson's  hydran- 
gea, for  the  first  time  in  Europe,  unfurled  their 
novel  buds;  but  all  these  green  things  of  the  earth 
needed  room  to  spread  their  roots.  Like  fKing 
Ahab  from  his  palace,  Buffon  from  the  windows 
of  his  cabinet,  looked  out  and  saw  a  piece  of  rich 
marshy  land  which  stretched  from  the  gardens  to 
the  Seine.  This  enviable  estate  belonged  to  a 
monastery — the  Abbaye  de  St.  Victor.  From  the 
first  day  of  his  entrance  to  the  Jardin  du  Roi,  Buffon 
intended  to  possess  that  Naboth's  vineyard.  But 
the  monks  proved  tenacious.  They  liked  their 
marshy  pastures,  and  said  they  could  not  sell  them, 
having  no  right  to  dispose  of  glebeland,  which  (as 
mainmorte)  was  possessed  by  no  individual,  or  set 
of  individuals,  but  entailed  upon  the  future  con- 
gregations of  the  abbey.  Temptingly  the  pastures 
spread  between  the  gardens  and  Paris,  between  the 
gardens  and  the  Seine;  while  to  the  east  of  the 
museum  stretched  a  wide  expanse,  known  as  the 
Clos  Patouillet.  This  latter  piece  of  land  Buffon 
(not  trusting  to  the  parsimonious  delays  of  the 
Treasury)  was  able  to  purchase  in  his  own  name, 
in  1778.  But  it  took  him  ten  years  of  arduous 
diplomacy — of  endless  negotiations,  attentions,  and 
courteous  perseverance — ere  he  could  bring  the 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN         251 

Abbot  of  St.  Victor  to  entertain  the  idea  of  an 
exchange.  At  last  ("  sans  rien  demander  a  la  ville  ") 
Buffon  entered  into  possession  of  his  long-coveted 
dominion,  but  not  without  a  final  appeal  to  force. 
When  all  was  signed  and  sealed,  the  monks  still 
dallied  in  their  abbey,  treating  summons  after  sum- 
mons with  masterly  inertia.  At  last,  one  day  of 
torrential  rain,  Buffon,  the  new  owner,  dispatched  a 
squad  of  workmen  and  bade  them  demolish  the 
building,  and  to  begin  with  the  roof.  Before  even- 
song "Messieurs  de  St.  Victor3'  had  decamped. 
And  now  the  antelope  grazes,  the  lion  seeks  whom 
he  can  devour,  the  dreamy  catoblepas  absent- 
mindedly  consumes  his  own  front  paws  in  the 
cloister  meadows  where  of  old  the  abbey  kine  were 
wont  to  graze. 


IV 

Buffon  at  the  Garden  of  Plants  enjoyed  the 
practically  unlimited  control  of  a  dictator.  He  alone 
fixed  every  detail  of  the  administration,  settled  the 
budget,  appointed  and  directed  professors  and 
gardeners  alike,  and  fixed  the  rate  of  their 
remuneration.  Here  is  the  formula  of  one  of  his 
decrees — 

"  Nous,  George-Louis  Leclerc,  chevalier,  comte 
et  seigneur  de  Buffon  et  autres  lieux,  vicomte  de 
Quincy,  Marquis  de  Rougemont,  Tun  des  quarante 


252  THE    FRENCH   IDEAL 

de  1'Academie  Franchise,  tresorier  perpetual  de 
r  Academic  Royale  des  Sciences  de  Paris,  des 
Academies  de  Londres,  Edimbourg,  Berlin,  Saint- 
Petersbourg,  Florence,  Philadelphie,  Boston,  etc. 
Intendant  du  Jardin  et  du  Cabinet  du  Roi. 

"A  tous  ceux  qui  ces  presentes  lettres  verront, 
salut ! 

"  Sur  ce  qu'il  nous  a  etc  represente  que  1'ofnce 
de  professeur  de  chimie  aux  ecoles  du  Jardin  du 
Roi,  est  actuellement  vacant  par  le  deces  du  sieur 
Macquer.  .  .  . 

"  En  consequence  et  en  vertu  des  pouvoirs  a  nous 
accordes  par  le  Roi,  de  nommer  et  presenter  a  Sa 
Majeste  tous  les  officiers  de  cet  etablissement,  nous 
nous  sommes  dument  informe  de  la  personne  et 
de  la  capacite  du  Sieur  Antoine-Fran^ois  Four- 
croy,  comme  aussi  de  sa  bonne  vie,  moeurs  et 
religion. 

"  Et  nous  1'avons,  sous  le  bon  plaisir  de  Sa 
Majeste,  nomme." 

Buffon  was  the  King  of  Botany,  the  Monarch  of 
Natural  History,  a  very  great  seigneur ;  yet,  even  in 
the  writers  most  hostile  to  his  autocratic  rule, 
nowhere  do  we  find  a  complaint  against  the  justice, 
the  impartiality,  the  wise  administration  of  a  reign 
that  lasted  nine-and-forty  years. 

Like  all  happy  tyrants  he  was  seconded  by 
ministers  judiciously  selected  and  constantly  sup- 
ported. His  head  gardener,  Andre  Thouin,  was 
the  son  of  a  gardener,  born  in  the  garden,  and  lived 
there  nearly  eighty  years.  Verniquet  the  architect 
was  scarcely  less  solidly  attached,  and  sharing  the 


BUFFON   IN  HIS  GARDEN         253 

master's  enthusiasm,  generously  shared  his  pecuni- 
ary sacrifices ;  the  garden  cost  its  architect,  as  it  cost 
its  intendant,  far  more  than  ever  it  paid  them; 
Buffon  at  his  death  was  the  King's  creditor  to  the 
tune  of  six  hundred  thousand  livres,  or,  as  we  say  in 
modern  parlance,  francs. 

In  return  he  received  not  quite  five  hundred  pounds 
a  year  (12,000  livres),  but  also  complete  liberty, 
regal  sway,  and  the  facility  of  indulging  his  scientific 
passion.  We  have  seen  him  exchanging  estates  and 
raising  buildings,  evicting  tenants  (and  even  him- 
self), spending  the  moneys  he  had  and  the  moneys 
he  had  not,  advancing  his  own  fortune  to  the  State, 
renewing  and  re-housing  the  collections  three  times 
in  less  than  fifty  years,  enclosing  his  grounds  with 
gates  and  handsome  railings  of  iron  forged  by  his 
own  workmen  at  his  own  foundry  of  Buffon.  His 
correspondence  with  Andre  Thouin  shows  him 
inquiring  into  the  minutest  item  of  repairs,  deciding 
the  thickness  of  a  garden  wall  or  the  partition  of  an 
apartment.  Not  a  dried  plant  or  a  stuffed  bird  or  a 
stone  in  the  cabinet,  not  a  detail  of  the  humblest 
hothouse,  not  an  engraving  or  a  proofsheet  in  the 
Histoire  Naturelle,  but  he  ordered  it  with  no  less 
accuracy,  no  less  expense  of  will,  and  as  disinter- 
ested a  passion  for  the  public  good  as  he  bestowed 
on  his  grandest  conceptions.  In  great  and  small 
he  showed  himself  the  man  who  wrote  that  "  Genius 
is,  in  fine,  a  longer  patience." 

Intensely  provincial,  at  bottom  always  mistrust- 


254  THE  FRENCH  IDEAL 

ful  of  Paris  and  the  Court,  he  filled  his  garden 
with  Burgundians — Verniquet,  Lucas,  the  tribe  of 
Guineau,  the  troop  of  Daubenton.  The  name  of 
Louis-Jean-Marie  Daubenton  is  as  inseparable  from 
the  fame  of  BufTon  as  that  of  Torricelli  from 
Galileo,  of  Perier  from  Pascal,  or,  from  the  memory 
of  Pasteur,  the  names  of  Duclaux  and  Roux. 

Daubenton,  his  neighbour  in  the  county,  was  the 
son  of  the  notary  at  Montbard;  Louis-Jean-Marie, 
the  most  gifted  of  a  gifted  family,  was  a  young 
doctor  of  six-and-twenty  practising  in  his  native 
place,  when,  in  1742,  Buffon  summoned  him  to 
Paris  to  help  him  with  the  management  of  the  plants 
and  the  production  of  the  Histoire  Naturelle. 
While  Buffon  discoursed  on  Nature  and  the 
development  pf  the  globe  (founding  the  as  yet 
unformulated  idea  of  evolution  on  a  basis  of 
geology);  while  Buffon  painted  a  series  of  brilliant 
decorated  frescoes  of  the  various  phases  of  the 
earth  with  portraits  of  the  different  families  of 
animals,  "  the  Doctor "  (as  Buffon  called  Dau- 
benton) added  to  this  poem  in  prose  an  appendix 
of  useful  notes,  anatomical  researches  and  analysis. 
Buffon,  if  any  man,  knew  his  own  worth.  He  was 
aware  that  imagination  and  not  exactness  is  the 
true  secret  of  science,  no  less  than  of  letters;  in  his 
eyes  the  cautious  and  sceptical  Daubenton  remained 
a  rather  pettifogging  personage.  After  a  score  of 
years  spent  in  partnership  he  half  destroyed  their 
friendship  by  issuing  a  popular  edition  of  the 
Natural  History  without  the  "  tripaillerie "  of  his 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN         255 

colleague's  anatomical  plates.  But  the  fame  of  the 
"  Doctor  "  stood  high,  and  increased  year  by  year. 
His  Shepherd's  Calendar  (an  almanack  for  farmers, 
full  of  instructions  on  the  management  of  flocks) 
became  a  classic  in  an  age  devoted  to  scientific 
agriculture,  and  earned  for  its  author  the  name  of 
Shepherd  Daubenton.  The  "  Doctor  "  had  become 
the  "  Berger"  and  for  close  on  sixty  years  the  canny 
shepherd  remained  a  popular  figure.  The  Revolu- 
tion (which  was  to  cut  off  the  head  of  Buffon's  son 
and  heir)  proclaimed  old  Daubenton  a  senator,  and 
raised  a  statue  to  the  introducer  of  the  merino  sheep, 
the  acclimatiser  of  the  plant  ipecacuanha. 

V 

In  1779,  Buffon  produced  the  first  volumes  of  his 
Histoire  de  la  Nature.  "  C'etait  un  des  evenements 
du  siecle,"  writes  Sainte-Beuve.  And  yet  it  was 
hardly  an  event  in  science.  When  Buffon,  at  two- 
and-thirty  years  of  age,  had  entered,  ten  years 
before,  on  his  duties  at  the  Garden,  he  had  been  as 
yet  in  no  sense  a  naturalist.  Nature  had  made  him 
a  philosopher;  education  a  geometrician.  Patience 
and  the  experimental  method  were  gradually  to 
make  of  him  a  man  of  science. 

Fortunately  for  him,  Newton  had  been  his  master. 
And  in  his  first  book — in  his  translation  of  Hales — 
his  Statique  des  Vegetaux — Buffon  had  already 
written : 

"  C'est  par  des  experiences  fines,  raisonnees  et 


256  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

suivies  que  Ton  force  la  Nature  a  decouvrir  son 
secret.  Toutes  les  autres  methodes  n'ont  jamais 
reussi,  et  les  vrais  physiciens  ne  peuvent  s'empecher 
de  regarder  les  anciens  systemes  comme  d'anciennes 
reveries  et  sont  reduits  a  lire  la  plupart  des  nou- 
veaux  comme  on  lit  des  romans.  Les  recueils 
cT experiences  et  d' observations  sont  done  les  seuls 
livres  qui  puissent  augmented  nos  connaissances" 

His  garden  of  plants,  his  cabinet  of  minerals,  his 
cases  of  stuffed  animals  and  birds  from  all  the  world 
over,  presented  him  (he  thought)  with  unequalled 
opportunities  for  research  and  observation.  When 
in  1739  (some  ten  years  before  he  published  the 
first  three  volumes  out  of  thirty-six)  Buffon  had  first 
decided  to  compose  a  Natural  History,  he  meant  it 
to  be  a  recueil  d 'experiences  et  d 'observations,  a  sort 
of  catalogue  and  chronicle  of  the  Museum  and  the 
Garden.  He  had  as  yet  no  conception  of  a  great 
imaginative  revival, — no  notion  that  he  was  to  renew 
the  French  Ideal.  Buffon  became  Buffon  because 
the  book  (taking  the  bit  in  its  mouth,  so  to  speak) 
ran  away  with  its  author's  convictions,  and  appeared 
at  last  as  no  mere  annals  or  journal  of  observations, 
but  a  magnificent  inconclusive  epic,  "  De  Natura 
Rerum." 

It  is  a  thing  to  muse  upon  that,  if  Buffon  had  not 
been  made  Intendant,  Buffon  would  never  have 
written  his  Histoire  Naturelle;  and  without  Buffon 
can  we  imagine  Rousseau,  Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre, 
Chateaubriand,  Lamartine,  all  that  great  race  of  the 
sons  of  Nature? 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN         257 

The  very  scheme  reveals  imagination  rather  than 
a  scientific  mind.  Buffon  shows  us  mankind  per- 
sonified as  some  solitary  individual,  awaking  in  an 
enchanted  isle  or  garden,  and  gradually  compre- 
hending his  surroundings  :  distinguishing  first  of  all 
such  creatures  as  are  necessary  or  useful — the  horse, 
the  dog,  the  ox — and  then  those  which  more  con- 
stantly cross  the  field  of  his  vision :  the  hare,  the 
stag,  the  commoner  birds.  In  this  order  (which  he 
calls  natural,  and  which  we  may  call  romantic) 
Buffon  classifies  the  world  of  beast  and  bird  and 
plant  and  stone.  When,  ten  years  after  his  appoint- 
ment to  the  Garden,  the  first  volumes  of  his  Natural 
History  were  given  to  the  world,  amidst  the  chorus 
of  admiration  which  their  style  and  genius  naturally 
evoked,  there  were  some  murmurs  of  surprise 
or  disapproval  from  Buffon's  colleagues  at  the 
Academic  des  Sciences.  For  Reaumur  and  Lin- 
naeus were  busy  at  that  very  time  with  a  very 
different  system  of  classification.  The  sexual  system 
of  the  Swede,  and  the  vast  ideas  which  it  suggested, 
were  changing  the  conceptions  of  men  of  science  in 
Europe.  But  Buffon  apparently  had  never  heard 
of  Linnaeus.  He  had  sins  of  commission,  too,  and 
the  peculiar  mild  malignity  of  Academicians  was 
stimulated  by  Buffon's  statement  that  "oxen  shed 
their  horns  in  their  third  year,"  as  by  his  refusal 
to  class  the  ass  in  the  equine  tribe,  out  of  a  feel- 
ing of  respect  for  the  horse.  There  was  for  some 
time  a  quarrel  between  the  "populace  of  natural- 


258  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

ists  "  (as  he  called  them)  and  M.  de  Buff  on,  who,  for 
his  part,  could  not  understand  their  extraordinary 
attention  to  details.  Why  should  Reaumur  spend 
years  in  studying  the  life  of  insects?  Is  an  insect 
noble  ?  Is  an  insect  interesting  ?  "  Car  enfin  une 
mouche  ne  doit  pas  tenir  plus  de  place  dans  la  tete 
d'un  naturaliste  qu'elle  n'en  tient  dans  la  Nature !  " 
Infinitely  sensitive  to  infinite  grandeur,  Buffon  was 
not  by  nature  accurate  or  observant ;  his  shortsighted 
eyes  were  blind  to  detail;  he  possessed  that  com- 
prehensive turn  of  mind  which  conceives  the  general 
more  easily  than  the  particular,  revels  in  the  sense 
of  sequence,  and  notices  less  the  constitution  of  any 
part  than  its  relation  to  the  other  factors  of  a  whole. 
But  he  was,  as  Sainte-Beuve  has  remarked  with  his 
usual  sagacity,  "un  grand  esprit  educable."  The 
Garden  and  the  Natural  History  were  to  prove  the 
educators  of  his  patient  mind. 

The  defect  in  Buffon's  scientific  equipment  which 
chiefly  shocked  his  contemporaries — his  mistrust 
and  ignorance  of  classification — is  less  displeasing 
to  ourselves.  Men  of  science  in  our  times  are  wont 
to  admit  that,  if  they  classify,  it  is  in  obedience  to 
an  inherent  law  of  our  intellect,  which  cannot  con- 
ceive things  clearly  unless  they  be  distributed  in 
categories;  our  savants  know  their  orders  to  be 
artificial,  a  convention  imposed  from  without  upon 
the  magnificent  anarchy  of  the  universe;  they  con- 
sider their  catalogues  provisional  and  hypothetic. 
We  are  all  nominalists  to-day.  But  Linnaeus,  but 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN         259 

Reaumur,  would  have  gone  to  the  stake  for  their 
classes.  Beyond  these  lists  and  families,  far  behind 
them,  Buffon,  alone  among  the  men  of  those  days, 
had  a  glimpse,  a  dim  inkling  of  something  all-per- 
vading, infinitely  one,  yet  malleable  and  diverse, 
constantly  transformed  and  shifting,  which  is 
Nature.  And  therein  for  us  lies  his  superiority.  He 
saw,  he  felt,  the  One-in-All. 

Yet  in  cataloguing  his  specimens  at  the  Garden, 
Buffon  perceived  the  advantages  of  these  classifica- 
tions which  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  accept  as 
ultimate  truths;  and  (owing,  it  is  true,  to  the  per- 
sistent advocacy  of  Jussieu)  the  systems  of  Linnaeus 
and  Reaumur  were  finally  adopted  by  their  great 
adversary.  At  last  the  eyes  of  Buffon,  always  a 
little  dim  and  dazzled  from  too  long  gazing  on  the 
whole,  learned  to  observe,  learned  to  revere,  the 
infinitely  little  no  less  than  the  infinitely  great,  so 
that  the  Garden,  which  began  by  converting  its 
keeper  into  a  writer  on  Natural  History,  ended  by 
making  him,  in  word  and  in  deed,  a  Naturalist. 


VI 

Long  before  this,  from  his  terrace  at  Montbard 
the  eye  of  M.  de  Buffon  had  dropped  one  day  on 
the  convent  garden  of  the  little  town  below.  A 
young  girl  walked  there.  So  it  happened  that 
Buffon  at  five-and-forty  years  of  age  married  a 

S3 


260  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

girl  of  twenty,  beautiful,  nobly-born  and  poor, 
who  had  entered  the  convent  because  she  had 
no  dowry.  Relegated  to  that  sacred  refuge,  but 
free,  having  pronounced  no  vows,  she  first  set  eyes 
on  Buffon  in  1750,  and  two  years  later  he  carried  her 
up  the  hill  to  his  castle  of  Montbard,  in  defiance  of 
his  indignant  relatives.  .  .  .  Madame  de  Buffon  was 
a  happy  wife.  She  loved  her  husband  with  a  sort 
of  passion  of  admiration  and  respect;  gentle,  quiet, 
equable,  stately,  she  moved  along  her  terraces  as 
sedately  as  under  the  clipped  alleys  of  her  convent 
close  below.  But  she  died  young,  leaving  Buffon 
a  widower,  with  an  only  son,  a  child  of  five.  The 
future  of  this  little  lad — "Buffonet"  as  his  father 
called  him — was  thenceforth  a  constant  anxiety  to 
the  great  naturalist,  who  had  not  spared  his  own 
fortune  to  enrich  the  King's  Garden.  "  Le  Jardin 
du  Roi  est  mon  fils  aine,"  he  loved  to  say — and  now 
the  Garden  had  a  younger  brother. 

The  simplest  solution  appeared  to  be  to  look  on 
the  Garden  as  a  fief,  a  sort  of  hereditary  kingdom. 
If  the  state  owed  M.  de  Buffon  a  matter  of  six 
hundred  thousand  livres,  it  would  be  no  great  affair 
if  "  Buffonet "  should  succeed  to  Buffon  and  carry- 
on  his  father's  interest  in  the  concern.  "  Buffonet " 
would  complete  the  buildings,  continue  to  advance 
the  necessary  moneys;  and,  as  not  only  his  father's 
son  but  his  pupil,  would  inherit,  if  not  the  genius 
of  Buffon,  at  least  his  experience,  his  scientific 
authority,  his  knowledge  of  affairs. 

With  this  end  in  view,  the  great  naturalist  had 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN         261 

spared  no  pains  in  the  scientific  education  of  his 
only  son,  an  amiable  mediocre  youth,  who  had 
travelled  with  Lamarck,  visiting  in  his  company  the 
principal  botanical  establishments  of  Europe.  Nor 
could  any  director  hope  to  know  the  Garden  better 
than  this  young  man,  who  had  spent  his  childhood 
there ;  who  had  nearly  set  fire  to  the  great  hothouse 
one  night  when,  in  company  with  young  Lucas,  he 
had  organised  there  a  clandestine  sparrow  hunt  by 
torchlight ;  whose  escapades  had  made  him  the  terror 
and  the  darling  of  the  gardeners.  But  the  Ancien 
Regime  never  discovered  Napoleon's  axiom,  "  Find 
me  the  man  who  suits  the  place,  not  the  man  whom 
the  place  would  suit."  The  brevet  rank  of  such  pre- 
ferments was  usually  awarded  to  some  favourite  at 
court.  Buffon  had  never  been  assiduous  at  Versailles, 
and,  during  a  longer  absence  than  usual,  caused  by 
an  illness  in  1771,  Louis  XV  allowed  himself  to 
listen  to  a  mediocre  Maecenas,  such  as  sovereigns 
love :  an  Academician  of  agreeable  nullity,  a 
certain  Comte  de  la  Billarderie  dAngiviller,  who, 
on  his  own  admission,  had  only  "  les  connaissances 
superficielles  d'un  homme  du  monde."  He  was, 
however,  a  man  of  tact  and  amenity.  Made  aware 
of  the  despair  and  indignation  of  Buffon  when,  on 
his  recovery,  he  learned  this  fine  arrangement,  the 
Brevet-Intendant  wrote  to  him  such  a  letter  as  only 
a  gentleman  could  write.  In  1771  "Buffonet"  was 
a  child;  M.  dAngiviller  was  forty  years  of  age;  he 
therefore  proposed,  while  maintaining  his  claim  to 
the  "  survivance  "  of  Buffon,  to  adopt  Buffonet  as  his 


262  THE   FRENCH    IDEAL 

own  future  successor.  "Si  M.  votre  fils  s'attachait 
aux  sciences  je  lui  ferais  avoir  la  survivance  de  la 
place  si  dignement  remplie  par  son  pere."  M.  d'An- 
giviller  thus  woulci  fill  the  post  ad  interim  and  act 
as  a  sort  of  guardian  to  young  Buffon.  In  addition, 
as  a  compensation  (for  the  "  survivancier  "  received 
half  the  emoluments  of  the  post  to  which  he  was 
appointed),  the  King  raised  the  fief  of  Buffon  into 
a  county,  and  offered  the  new  Count  a  privilege  at 
court.  Buffon  was  sensitive  to  the  appeal  of  rank. 
The  affair  seemed  settled.  Unfortunately,  M.  d'Angi- 
viller  had  a  brother — a  brother  who  took  an  interest 
in  nature  and  science,  according  to  the  fashion  of 
the  age.  By  what  court  intrigue  we  know  not,  the 
"  survivance  "  of  the  "  survivancier  "  was  attributed 
to  him,  and  Buffonet  in  the  end  was  defrauded  of 
his  inheritance. 

In  these  intrigues  and  businesses  time  sped  on, 
increasing  with  every  year  the  fame  of  Buffon. 
That  sentimental  age  loved  him  the  more  for  the 
known  kindness  of  his  heart,  and  for  his  open 
pocket.  It  was  said  that  any  working  man  in  France 
out  of  employment  might  earn  his  bread  at  the 
Garden  of  Plants,  with  a  decent  wage,  in  any  season 
of  the  year.  In  his  forges  and  foundries  and  pine 
forests  of  Buffon;  in  his  improvements  and  build- 
ings at  the  Jardin  du  Roi;  on  his  estate  at  Mont- 
bard,  where  he  had  caused  a  magical  garden  to  scale 
the  steep  and  arid  faces  of  the  rock,  the  great 
naturalist  had  opened  a  series  of  national  work- 
shops which  he  maintained  for  more  than  fifty  years. 


BUFFON    IN   HIS   GARDEN         263 

To  those  who  expressed  their  astonishment  that  he 
should  cultivate  the  unfertile  soil  of  Montbard,  he 
admitted — 

"  Mes  jardins  ne  sont  qu'un  pretexte  pour  faire 
I'aumone." 

Such  was  the  man  who  had  made  of  the  King's 
herb  garden  a  laboratory  for  the  study  of  Nature ; 
who,  first  among  men,  had  sought  to  explain  the 
origins  of  our  Earth  and  her  successive  transforma- 
tions ;  who  had  described  the  life  on  her  surface  and 
the  constitution  of  her  depth,  and  who  had  shown 
how  man  had  disposed  of  her  varied  riches  in  the 
interests  of  his  own  power  and  happiness.  Larger 
and  loftier  in  mould  than  Montesquieu  or  Diderot, 
who,  for  mere  shrewdness  of  intelligence,  rank  as 
his  equals,  Buffon  has,  for  sheer  grasp  and  capacity 
of  mind,  no  rival  save  Voltaire  and  Rousseau ;  with 
them  he  dominates  the  eighteenth  century  in  France. 
And  he  reigned  from  a  throne  of  genius,  charity, 
and  knowledge.  He  knew  it;  perhaps  he  knew  it 
too  well.  His  innocent  pomposity  irritated  his  con- 
temporaries, and  though  Marmontel  averred  "  son 
paisible  orgueil  ne  fait  de  mal  a  personne,"  Diderot 
and  the  encyclopedists  jibed  at  his  calm  fatuity,  his 
regal  style,  and  mocked  the  frills  of  costly  lace  that 
he  donned  at  wrists  and  throat  before  sitting  down 
to  his  Histoire  Naturelle.  But  the  younger,  the 
deeper,  the  more  thoughtful  spirits  loved  him. 

And  it  fell  out  one  autumn  day  at  Montbard,  in 
1770,  that  a  traveller  quaintly  attired  as  an 


264  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Armenian  stopped  at  the  castle  gate  at  Montbard 
and  asked  to  be  shown  the  sanctuary  of  M.  de 
Buffon,  who  at  that  time  was  absent.  An  intimate 
of  the  castle  led  him  up  the  steep  flight  of  fourteen 
terraces  which  the  Master  of  the  Gardens  always 
used  to  scale  at  dawn  (shutting  the  fourteen  iron 
gates  behind  him  with  a  sonorous  clang,  as  though 
he  loved  the  echo  raised  by  the  metal  forged  in  his 
own  furnaces  at  Buffon).  At  last  the  Armenian  and 
his  guide  reached  the  bare  hall,  adorned  only  with  a 
fine  engraved  portrait  of  Newton,  in  which  the 
naturalist  was  wont  to  work.  Here  the  visitor 
stopped  in  the  doorway,  gazed  round  him  fervently, 
clasped  his  hands,  and,  dropping  to  his  knees,  em- 
braced the  threshold.  The  name  of  this  worshipper 
at  a  sanctuary  was  none  other  than  Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau,  the  most  eminent  of  Buffon's  disciples, 
— at  that  time  a  constant  visitor  at  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes,  an  organiser  of  botanical  excursions  in 
the  woods  of  Montmorency,  which  he  ransacked  for 
rare  specimens  in  company  with  the  younger  Jussieu 
and  Andre  Thouin  the  gardener. 


VII 

When  Buffon  was  asked  how  he  had  carried 
through  a  scheme  so  tremendous  as  the  Histoire 
Naturelle,  he  smiled  and  answered,  "  By  sitting  at 
my  writing-table  for  fifty  years."  But  there  comes 


BUFFON    IN   HIS   GARDEN         265 

an  end  to  the  best  prolonged  activity.  On  April 
15,  1788,  Buff  on  died.  The  singular  chance  which 
had  accompanied  all  his  life  was  manifest  in  the 
hour  of  his  departure.  He  died  on  the  eve  of  the 
Revolution — in  that  charming,  fleeting  season  when 
the  prosperity  of  France  appeared  to  be  renewed  by 
the  return  to  Nature  and  the  practice  of  agriculture. 
Buffon  could  not  have  imagined  the  Reign  of 
Terror. 

The  Revolution  proved  not  unkind  to  Buffon' s 
"  eldest  son,"  the  Garden ;  the  Convention  reformed 
and  improved  its  staff  of  teachers.  Buffon,  who  had 
done  so  much  to  organise  and  administrate  the  Jardin 
du  Roi,  had  paid  but  scant  attention  to  the  body 
of  professors;  at  his  death  there  were  but  three  of 
them,  with  three  demonstrators,  for  all  the  branches 
of  Natural  History — and  one  of  the  three  was  a 
professor  of  flower-painting.  When  death  at  last 
removed  Buffon  from  his  garden,  the  more  liberal 
spirits,  with  Daubenton  at  their  head,  demanded 
reform  :  Buffon  should  have  no  successor !  One 
day,  lecturing  at  the  College  of  France,  Daubenton 
had  taken  for  his  text  a  page  of  his  old  friend's 
Histoire  Nature  lie:  '  The  lion  is  the  king  of 
beasts !  "  he  began.  But  he  stopped  short,  and 
thundered  :  "  Nay,  in  the  wise  world  of  beasts  there 
is  no  king !  "  And,  at  the  Garden,  he  desired  no 
monarch. 

In  1791  the  Intendant,  M.  dAngiviller's  scientific 
brother,  emigrated  to  England,  and  for  some  twelve 


266  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

months  the  Garden  was  left  without  an  adminis- 
trator. During  that  season,  how  many  schemes  for 
its  future  were  debated,  of  nights,  round  the  gardener 
Andre  Thouin's  kitchen  fire  !  Thouin  and  Daubenton 
dreamed  of  twelve  professors,  all  equal  in  rank  and 
reputation,  under  a  director  chosen  from  their  body 
and  re-elected  every  year — schemes  which  the  King 
refused  to  sanction,  but  which  the  Convention  was  to 
make  realities  some  two  years  later,  in  June  1793. 
Meanwhile  Andre  Thouin  was  laying  out  the  grounds 
in  beautiful  mazes  and  gardens,  such  as  his  master 
had  loved,  making  of  the  place  the  popular  resort 
it  has  ever  since  continued.  On  the  fine  summer 
nights  of  1791  the  Parisians  used  to  stream  across 
the  bridge,  quitting  Paris  on  the  brink  of  revolution 
for  this  green  paradise.  For  the  patriots  of  the 
hour  the  real  hero  of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  was 
Thouin.  The  wise  gardener,  born  in  the  precincts 
of  the  gardens,  son  of  a  delver  of  the  soil,  man  of 
science,  and  man  of  the  people  still,  appears  against 
the  stormy  horizons  of  those  times  as  a  survival  of 
an  earlier  age.  In  his  roomy,  smoke-embrowned 
kitchen,  where  mistress  and  maids  came  and  went 
in  snowy  caps  and  fichus,  Rousseau  and  Males- 
herbes  had  often  sat,  bringing  their  rare  specimens, 
or  begging  seedlings  from  the  great  horticulturist. 
Artists  and  patriots  admired  the  Swiss  valley  which 
he  was  beginning  to  lay  out  between  the  mountain 
of  Sainte  Genevieve  and  the  Seine.  Members  of  the 
Legislative  Assembly,  weary  with  their  labours, 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN         267 

heart-sick  at  the  persistence  of  famine,  came  to  rest 
by  that  ample  hearth  and  to  question  the  worthy 
Thouin  as  to  the  value  of  potato  flour  and  such-like 
foreign  food-stuffs.  After  Parliament,  on  fine  sum- 
mer evenings,  they  would  cross  the  bridge  and  sit 
on  the  terrace,  among  the  orange-trees  in  pots ;  and, 
in  the  colder  season,  round  the  kitchen  fire  under 
the  mantel,  they  might  find  Van  Spaendonck  the 
flower-painter,  Mehul  the  musician,  the  illustrious 
Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre,  Ducis  the  tragic  poet, 
and  other  men  of  mark.  The  months  ran  on  and 
still  the  Garden  was  left  without  a  nominal  head. 
The  professors  hoped,  with  every  show  of  reason, 
that  Daubenton  would  obtain  the  post,  and  carry 
out  their  reforms.  But  in  the  eyes  of  the  court  Dau- 
benton was  something  of  a  Jacobin,  and  the  King 
had  determined  not  to  sanction  what  he  thought  a 
revolutionary  measure.  Louis  XVI  (who  liked 
Nature)  had  read  a  recent  nature-study,  a  master- 
piece in  its  way.  In  July  1792  he  wrote  to  the 
Minister  of  the  Interior  that  "  on  account  of  the 
prolonged  absence  of  M.  de  la  Billarderie  he  had 
decided  to  name  a  new  Intendant  of  the  Garden 
and  Cabinet  of  Natural  History :  '  C'est  M.  Bern- 
ardin de  St.  Pierre,  1'auteur  des  Etudes  de  la  Nature 
et  de  Paul  et  Virginic.  Ses  livres  sont  d'un  honnete 
homme,  et  ses  talents  le  designent  a  mon  choix 
comme  un  digne  successeur  de  Buffon.' '  This  was 
one  of  the  last  acts  of  an  expiring  monarchy. 


268  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 


VIII 

It  is  difficult  to  describe  the  stupefaction  of  the 
professors  at  the  Garden.  They  had  considered 
Buffon  too  literary,  too  little  of  a  chemist  or  a 
botanist,  they  were  in  full  reaction  against  his  tradi- 
tion, and  Antoine  de  Jussieu  had  recently  intro- 
duced into  the  cabinets  the  classifications  and 
nomenclature  of  Linnaeus  (the  great  rival  of  the 
founder),  which  Broussonnet  was  beginning  to  apply 
to  zoology.  They  were  full  of  utilitarian  schemes; 
a  great  part  of  the  Garden  was  given  over  to  experi- 
ments on  the  potato,  which,  though  already  a  com- 
mon and  popular  article  of  diet  in  England — Rous- 
seau remarks  the  fact  with  some  surprise — was  at 
that  time  still  pronounced  uneatable  in  the  provinces 
of  France.  The  savants  at  the  Garden  were 
engaged  in  producing  a  series  of  seedlings  adapted 
to  the  different  geological  districts  of  the  kingdom, 
where  it  was  hoped  that  an  ameliorated  variety 
might  in  some  degree  replace  the  failing  crops  of 
corn.  No  project  could  be  more  useful,  for  France 
was  in  a  state  of  famine.  This  was  but  one  of  a 
series  of  similar  schemes,  for  Broussonnet  was  ex- 
perimenting on  different  sorts  of  mulberry-trees,  for 
paper,  or  the  silk  trade.  He  dreamed  of  establish- 
ing in  the  Garden  a  school  of  rural  economy,  or 
agronomical  institute.  The  utilitarian  spirit  of  the 
Revolution  animated  these  men  of  science ;  man,  not 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN          269 

Nature,  was  the  object  of  their  researches;  or,  if 
they  still  loved  Nature,  it  was  no  longer  mystically 
or  sentimentally  as  a  divine  whole,  but  as  an  im- 
mense, as  yet  unclassified,  storehouse,  out  of  which 
it  was  possible  to  fetch  endless  discoveries  profit- 
able to  humanity.  Observation,  experiment,  utility, 
were  their  three  watchwords.  They  mistrusted 
general  ideas  and  the  deductions  of  philosophers, 
and  perhaps  they  were  right.  The  pages  of  Buffon 
(or  even  of  Diderot)  may  seem  to  us  now  extraordin- 
arily modern,  almost  in  line  with  the  subsequent  dis- 
coveries of  Lamarck  and  Darwin  and  De  Vries. 
But  these  are  the  vague  and  lambent  lightnings  of 
philosophy,  illuminating  vast  districts  of  the  mind, 
but  revealing  nothing  exactly  as  it  is.  General  ideas 
may  announce  a  great  discovery,  they  do  not  really 
advance  it,  unless  they  inspire  experiment  and  proof. 
Linnaeus  and  Reaumur,  with  their  narrower  but  exact 
intelligences,  nay  even  Daubenton,  though  almost 
devoid  of  the  gifts  of  expression,  were  probably  at 
least  as  useful  to  science  and  the  pursuit  of  truth  as 
Buffon  with  his  genius  and  abiding  generalities. 
The  Doctor,  with  his  wise  ironical  smile  and  desire 
to  see  and  touch  before  he  surmised,  used  to  irritate 
his  sublime  compatriot;  but,  although  imagination 
alone  can  divine  the  laws  of  science,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary that  the  man  who  verifies  and  applies  them 
should  have  a  wide  mental  horizon,  a  vast  philo- 
sophic outlook;  it  is  only  needful  that  he  should  fix 
very  clearly  and  very  attentively  the  series  of  facts 


270  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

on  which  he  concentrates  his  mind.  Daubenton  was 
the  real  naturalist ;  and  the  professors  of  the  Garden 
were  justified  in  resenting  the  appointment  of  a  man 
of  words  and  ideas,  when  they  required  a  man  of 
facts  and  proofs,  as  their  Director  at  the  Garden  of 
Plants. 

Great  was  the  surprise  of  these  worthy  men  of 
science  on  finding  that  they  possessed  in  Bernardin 
de  St.  Pierre  an  excellent  administrator,  diligent, 
economical,  exact.  Like  many  idealists,  Bernardin 
was  practical  to  the  verge  of  avarice,  and  (though, 
as  an  individual,  eternally  hat  in  hand,  extorting 
favours  from  all  who  represented  place  or  power) 
he  was,  as  a  civil  servant,  too  just  to  profit  even  by 
the  perquisites  of  his  post : — a  miser  is  nearly  always 
sensitive  on  the  point  of  rectitude.  Impeccable, 
scrupulous,  yet  alert  (where  the  interests  of  the 
Garden  were  concerned),  Bernardin  profited  by  that 
hour  of  discovery  and  disorganisation — magnificent 
opportunity  for  a  shrewd  collector ! — to  secure  such 
objects  and  curiosities  of  natural  history  as  served 
to  complete  the  National  Cabinet  in  Paris.  One 
day  in  September  1792  he  went  to  Versailles — then 
desolate,  deserted — on  the  look-out  for  rare  speci- 
mens; and  there  in  the  Park  he  saw,  no  cabinet  of 
curiosities,  but  a  small  menagerie  of  six  animals  :  a 
rhinoceros,  a  bubalus,  a  quagga,  a  Senegalian  lion 
living  in  society  with  a  hound,  and  a  tufted  pigeon 
from  the  island  of  Banda.  The  keeper  suggested 
a  massacre  of  these  rare  animals,  who,  stuffed, 


BUFFON   IN   HIS    GARDEN         271 

might  figure  in  the  Cabinet  in  Paris.  But  Bernardin 
dreamed  again  the  dream  of  Buffon :  "  Ce  sont 
sourtout  des  animaux  que  nous  desirons  beaucoup," 
and  determined  to  profit  by  an  opportunity  such  as 
Buffon  had  never  met  with — to  transport  the  crea- 
tures, living,  into  the  beautiful  garden  recently 
designed  by  Andre  Thouin  and  to  complete  a  place 
for  the  general  study  of  Nature,  a  synthesis  of  the 
earth,  where  painters,  writers,  men  of  science  might 
resort  "  s'ils  ont  a  representer  des  sites  d'Asie, 
d'Afrique  et  d'Amerique."  With  pen  and  tongue 
he  promulgated  his  idea,  until  he  converted  the 
leaders  of  the  Convention.  The  professors  at  the 
Garden  were  less  enthusiastic.  The  first  scheme  of 
Bernardin  had  been  to  plant  the  grounds  with  sacred 
groves  and  statues  of  great  men;  when  he  filled 
them  with  beasts  in  pens  :  the  lion  from  Rouen  Fair, 
the  dromedaries  of  the  Prince  de  Ligny  and  the 
bubalus  and  the  quagga — he  seemed  but  a  decorative 
sort  of  dreamer  to  the  utilitarian  Daubenton  and 
his  colleagues, 

But  Bernardin  had  other  merits,  which  they  did 
not  deny  him.  He  entered  into  their  ideas  with 
intelligence  and  respect.  Although  jealous  of  his 
prerogatives,  he  exercised  them  with  justice  and 
magnanimity.  He  refused  to  appoint  a  successor 
to  Daubenton,  whose  great  age  and  frail  health  at 
last  compelled  him  to  retire,  suggesting  a  competi- 
tive examination  before  a  jury  of  men  of  science,  as 
the  likeliest  way  to  open  a  career  to  real  merit : 


272  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

"  C'est  le  seul  moyen  de  couper  tous  les  fils  de 
1'intrigue,  qui  ne  sont  pas  moms  nombreux  dans  le 
nouveau  regime  que  dans  1'ancien."  His  com- 
mentary on  the  budget  of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes, 
addressed  to  the  Minister,  Roland,  is,  of  all  the 
documents  that  we  possess  to-day  relating  to  the 
national  Garden,  that  which  gives  the  clearest  idea 
of  its  equipment  and  resources.  Bernardin,  while 
content  to  put  up  with  many  deficiencies  (the  grounds 
were  lighted  by  five  lamp-posts  with  oil  lamps  and 
one  lantern  for  the  hothouses),  insists  on  what  is 
really  required  for  the  scientific  purpose  of  the 
Garden,  and  asks  that  his  greenhouses  and  tanks  be 
well  repaired.  Above  all  he  demands  the  creation 
of  a  "grande  bibliotheque  de  livres  d'histoire 
naturelle."  Thus  (no  less  than  the  Zoological 
Gardens)  the  fine  library  of  the  Museum  was  in- 
augurated by  the  author  of  Paul  et  Virginie. 

Perhaps,  indeed,  the  Garden  owed  the  continua- 
tion of  its  existence  to  the  diplomatic  tact  of  the 
wily  Norman.  The  year  of  Bernardin's  directorship 
was  a  terrible  year — the  year  of  the  King's  execu- 
tion, of  the  September  massacres,  of  the  rising  in 
La  Vendee — the  year  of  the  Reign  of  Terror.  And 
in  August  1902  the  officers  of  the  Garden  were  sus- 
pected of  a  lack  of  "  civisme."  It  was  supposed 
that  they  were  aristocrats.  Had  not  the  under- 
warden  of  the  grounds  forbid  his  underlings  to  join 
in  the  riots  of  the  Revolution?  The  situation  was 
serious,  even  for  Bernardin.  It  is  amusing  and  a 


BUFFON   IN   HIS   GARDEN        273 

little  piteous  to  watch  his  efforts  to  prove  his  own 
patriotism  while  enlightening  his  legislators  as  to 
the  advantages  of  culture — while  endeavouring  to 
persuade  them  that  the  State  might  reap  a  benefit 
from  the  possession  of  a  museum  and  a  garden.  It 
is  always  a  little  difficult  to  convince  a  democracy 
of  the  necessity  of  pure  science.  This  is  how 
Bernardin  excused  himself,  as  a  savant,  from  regular 
attendance  at  the  "  Section,"  or  local  council,  of  the 
quarter  of  the  Gobelins.  We  can  imagine  Ernest 
Renan  reading,  or  even  writing,  such  a  page — 

"  La  Nature  a  distribue  inegalement  les  talents 
et  les  devoirs  parmi  les  hommes,  afin  d'entretenir 
entre  eux  1'harmonie  sociale.  Les  uns  sont  destines 
pour  les  tranquilles  bureaux,  d'autres  pour  les 
tribunes  orageuses.  Le  civisme  d'un  homme  de 
lettres  est  dans  son  cabinet.  .  .  .  C'est  dans  la 
solitude  que  Fenelon  et  Jean-Jacques  ont  produit 
leurs  immortels  ecrits  qui  ont  parle,  non  seulement 
a  leur  pays  et  a  leur  siecle,  mais  au  genre  humain 
et  a  la  posterite.  Si  Fenelon  ne  s'etait  occupe  que 
des  interets  de  son  diocese,  et  Jean-Jacques  que  de 
ceux  de  Geneve,  la  Revolution  de  1'empire  francais 
serait  encore  a  faire.  La  section  d'un  ami  des 
hommes,  c'est  TUnivers  !  " 

Dazzled  by  the  reflection  that,  if  Fenelon  had 
never  written,  there  would  have  been  no  Revolu- 
tion, the  sans-culottes  of  the  Section  des  Gobelins 
awarded  a  certificate  of  civism  to  the  naturalists  of 
the  Garden;  while,  for  an  expiatory  victim,  they 
sent  to  the  scaffold  the  son  and  heir  of  Buffon.  In 


274  THE   FRENCH    IDEAL 

July  1794  they  cut  off  his  head,  nine  days  before 
the  fall  of  Robespierre.  The  unfortunate  young 
man  had  embraced  with  ardour  the  ideas  of  the 
Revolution,  and  scarcely  could  believe  in  his  ill- 
luck.  The  son  of  so  illustrious  a  father,  the  bride- 
groom of  Betzy  Daubenton :  could  life  be  snatched 
from  him  at  the  moment  when  he  prized  it  most? 
As  he  mounted  the  steps  of  the  guillotine,  he  cried 
aloud  in  a  steady  voice  from  his  place  of  death : 
"  Citoyens,  je  me  nomme  Buff  on  !  "  But  the  knife 
fell.  And  the  State  was  freed  from  the  presence 
of  a  considerable  creditor. 

The    Garden,    the    elder    son    of    Buffon,    had 
devoured  the  younger  brother,  Buffonet. 


IV 
LAMARTINE   AND    ELVIRE 

'J'aimais  avec  la  pure  ferveur  de  1'innocence   passionnee 
une  personne  angelique."— LAMARTINE. 


T  a 


1.  Lettres  (fElvire  &  Lamartine.     Par  RENE  DOUMIC.     Hachette. 

1905. 

2.  Lamartine^    Elvire.      Documents  intdits.     Par    LEON     SECHE, 

Mercure  de  France.     1905. 

3.  Meditations   poetiques.      Raphael,     Lamartine,    par    lui-mcme. 

Le  Manuscrit  de  ma  mere.     Par  LAMARTINE. 

4.  Les  Palmes  du  Souvenir.     Par  ANATOLE  FRANCE.     Pelletan. 

1908. 


IV 
LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE 

IF  Musset — the  passionate  and  mocking  Musset 
—stands  in  France  for  the  counterpart  of  Byron, 
may  we  not  consider  Lamartine  the  French  for 
Shelley?  No  poet  has  touched  like  these  two  those 
dim  mysterious  confines  of  the  soul  where  the  One 
becomes  the  All,  and  the  moment  is  caught  up  into 
eternity.  What  mighty  poets  they  would  be,  did  not 
something  diffuse  and  unreal,  garrulous  and  neg- 
ligent, deteriorate  the  exquisite  quality  of  their  best ! 
They  lack  judgment  and  reason.  They  enchant, 
ravish,  inspire ;  let  us  not  ask  them  to  support,  direct, 
or  control.  Yet  either  thought  himself  endowed 
with  a  mission  and  a  message  to  correct  the  miser- 
able destinies  of  men.  If  Shelley  had  lived,  he 
might  well,  like  Lamartine,  have  ended  as  a  popular 
tribune  and  political  reformer — a  sort  of  Operatic 
Rienzi.  For  they  took  the  scene  of  our  human 
activities  for  a  Cloudcuckootown,  and  the  prompt- 
ings of  their  humanitarian  enthusiasm  were  doomed 
to  remain  devoid  of  effect. 

With  a  like  facility  and  abundance,  a  freshness 
of  ecstasy  unparalleled,  either  expressed  the  gospel 
of  idealist  universalism.  They  were  a  moment  in 
the  mind  of  Europe.  What  were  1820  without 

277 


278  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Shelley  and  Lamartine  ?  Despite  his  vagueness,  the 
one  remains  the  greatest  philosophical  lyrist  which 
the  nineteenth  century  can  boast  in  England,  even 
as  the  other  was  the  sole  religious  poet — the  only 
psalmist — which  the  same  period  produced  in 
France. 

Lamartine  is  religious  by  a  native  aspiration  of 
the  soul,  as  naturally  as  the  sparks  fly  upwards- 
religious,  but  not  virtuous,  as  he  himself  remarked 
in  a  mood  of  grandiloquent  sincerity— 

"  Des  cris  d'adoration  s'echappent  de  ma  poitrine 
presque  a  chacune  de  mes  respirations.  Ce  senti- 
ment, naturel,  constant,  passionne,  de  la  grandeur, 
de  la  presence,  de  1'ubiquite  de  Dieu,  est  la  base 
fondamentale  de  cet  instrument  que  la  nature  a  mis 
dans  ma  poitrine  :  harpe  ou  ame,  c'est  la  meme 
chose !  Ce  sentiment,  cet  hymne  perpetuel  qui 
chante  involontairement  en  moi,  ne  m'a  pas  rendu 
plus  vertueux ;  la  vertu  est  un  effort,  et  je  n'aime  pas 
1'effort;  mais  il  m'a  rendu  plus  adorateur.  Adorer, 
selon  moi,  c'est  vivre." 

This  mood  of  adoration,  which  is  the  special 
quality  and  grandeur  of  his  verse,  is  indeed  the  very 
depth  and  spring  of  his  nature — but  for  a  chance 
encounter,  it  might  have  remained  a  hidden  depth ! 
How  many  of  us  need  a  well-finder !  If  no  rod 
strike  the  barren  rock,  how  often  the  fountain 
dwindles  imprisoned  beneath  the  dust  and  granite 
of  the  mountain !  Lamartine  would  in  any  case 
have  been  a  poet,  a  great  poet.  He  would  have 
written,  no  doubt,  the  Dernier  Chant  de  Childe 
Harold,  his  political  hymns,  the  Chant  d*  Amour, 


LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE        279 

and  the  Harmonies.  If  he  had  not  met  with  a 
woman — herself  neither  a  saint  nor  a  mystic,  nor 
even  a  religious  woman,  but  just  a  sensitive  pas- 
sionate soul  drinking  deep  of  life  and  death — with- 
out Elvire,  in  fine,  would  he  have  expressed  in 
unequalled  language  the  genius  of  Christianity? 
Would  he  have  written  Le  Vallon,  Le  Crucifix, 
or  Jocelyn  ?  This  debt  we  owe  to  the  poor  lady, 
who  met  Lamartine  too  late,  even  as  she  glided  out 
of  our  world,  and  drew  with  her,  far  beyond  our 
mortal  horizons,  the  devoted  gaze  of  a  lover  made 
immortal.  During  four  times  twenty  years  her  name 
and  place  in  human  society,  her  form,  her  features, 
her  character  even,  remained  hidden  from  us;  we 
knew  her  only  as  Elvire — as  a  mysterious  veiled 
Egeria.  But  Time,  which  gives  us  up  the  secrets  of 
the  dead,  has  at  last  revealed  the  personality  and 
published  the  love-letters  of  Julie  Charles. 

The  service  she  rendered  her  lover  by  inspiring 
his  truest  poems  has  perhaps  a  set-off  in  the  actual 
unpopularity  of  Lamartine,  doubtless  a  result  of  his 
vague  idealism.  For  every  generation  judges  accord- 
ing to  the  spirit  of  the  age.  When  Lamartine  was 
young — during  the  fever  of  the  Restoration,  in  the 
reaction  of  enthusiasm  which  followed  the  grim 
realities  of  the  Revolution  and  a  period  of  imperial 
wars — hard  facts  were  at  a  discount :  men  had  had 
to  reckon  with  them  too  long !  Notions  and  ideas 
were  welcomed  as  manna  in  the  desert.  Such 
abstract  intellectual  perceptions,  conceived  without 
reference  to  experience,  as  inspired  the  muse  of 


280  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Lamartine  awoke  a  fervent  response.  Poet  and 
audience  were  prepared  alike  to  soar  up  in  the  blue 
and  pluck  a  ray  from  the  shining  summits  of  the 
zenith !  This  mood  of  mind,  which  began  about 
1815,  came  to  a  sudden  end  with  the  cataclysm  of 
1848.  The  fires  of  the  barricades  melted  the  wax 
of  Icarus'  wings  :  the  whole  spirit  of  the  public 
changed.  Philosophy  and  idealism  went  suddenly 
out  of  fashion  utterly,  and  their  altars  were  appro- 
priated to  the  cult  of  experimental  science.  The 
meditations  of  Lamartine  appeared  frothy  and  vain 
to  minds  trained  in  the  rigorous  discipline  of  natural 
history  and  physiology.  Two  generations  of  French- 
men, during  fifty  years,  smiled  at  the  rhetoric  which 
had  charmed  their  grandfathers.  Lamartine  and 
Chateaubriand  were  laid  on  the  shelf.  But  no  one 
mood  lasts  long  in  the  history  of  letters.  The  cult 
of  physical  science  which  since  1850  has  swayed  the 
mental  tides  of  Europe  may  even  now  be  doomed, 
in  the  hour  of  its  triumph.  In  France  at  least  M. 
Bergson,  M.  Le  Roy,  M.  Peguy  and  their  followers 
expect  and  prepare  a  reaction;  and  it  is  a  sign  of 
the  times  that  so  great  a  savant  as  M.  H.  Poincare 
lends  an  ear  indulgent,  perhaps  amused,  and  a  sort 
of  sceptical  support  to  these  underminers  of  the 
scientific  position.  These  anti-intellectualists  are 
seers  and  soothsayers  who  gaze  beyond  the  regions 
of  immediate  fact.  The  tests  of  experience  produce 
in  them  a  mood  of  scepticism.  Some  of  them, 
indeed,  are  inclined  to  suggest  that  experimental 
knowledge  is  a  system  of  organised  conventions,  so 


LAMART1NE   AND   ELVIRE        281 

neatly  dovetailed  into  each  other  as  to  produce  an 
effect  of  apparent  certitude,  yet  with  no  more  real 
relation  to  the  hidden  sources  of  genius,  attraction, 
life  and  death,  than  the  elaborate  mystifications  of  a 
conjurer  or  the  artificial  sequences  in  a  game  of 
cards.  They  whisper  that  scientific  laws  are  the 
half-unconscious  invention  of  their  contrivers  or  dis- 
coverers ;  that  natural  science,  incapable  of  approach- 
ing ideal  truth,  can  never  be  the  moral  guide  of  man 
nor  take  the  leading  place  in  his  education.  The 
human  mind  (they  say)  deforms  and  alters  every- 
thing it  touches,  giving  (to  what  is  in  reality  without 
form  and  void)  a  false  aspect  of  a  system  and  order ; 
even  as  sea  water,  collected  in  a  transparent  vase, 
may  appear  a  shining  cube,  or  globe,  or  hexagon — 
but  the  form  is  the  form  of  the  vessel,  eternally  dis- 
tinct from  the  vast  essence  of  the  ocean,  of  which  it 
contains  but  a  drop.  In  fact,  the  mind  manipulates 
Truth  and  makes  it  over  in  a  mortal  image,  and 
therefore  the  reality  of  Truth  remains  undiscoverable 
to  human  reason.  Happily  man  (they  continue)  is  a 
medium  for  other  forces  than  his  intelligence — he 
is  inspired  by  feeling,  instinct,  faith,  ecstasy,  and  by 
those  blind  intuitions  which  emanate  obscurely  from 
a  subliminal  self.  So,  right  or  wrong,  reason  these 
idealists;  and  if,  as  it  appears  sufficiently  probable, 
the  generation  born  during  the  'eighties  and  the 
'nineties  should  adopt  them  for  leaders,  Lamartine, 
like  Pascal,  may  yet  have  his  revenge  and  his 
apotheosis,  and  appear  to  our  children  as  a  guide, 
philosopher,  and  friend. 


282  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 


While  we  still  inhabit  a  world  which  seeks  to 
explain  the  character  of  men  and  things  by  their 
origin  and  circumstances — seeing  facts  in  their 
sequence  and  taking  account  of  time  and  place — 
let  us  continue  to  study  our  great  men  in  their 
heredity  and  history,  and  strive  to  surprise  the  secret 
of  their  genius  by  other  suppositions  than  the 
sudden,  capricious  influx  of  a  supernatural  force. 
There  are  plenty  of  documents  relating  to  the  child- 
hood and  family  of  Lamartine;  unfortunately  not 
one  of  them  is  wholly  satisfactory.  The  letters  and 
poems  of  his  youth  are  too  vague  and  loose  to  give 
a  clear  idea  of  his  surroundings,  while  the  reminis- 
cences of  his  old  age  are  often  concerted  and  trans- 
formed by  a  trick  of  his  imagination.  Still,  by 
controlling  these  by  those,  and  comparing  the  result 
with  the  evidence  of  contemporaries,  we  may  form 
a  fair  idea  of  the  young  Lamartine. 

Like  many  poets,  he  owed  much  to  his  mother — 
the  feminine  strain  ran  strong  in  him.  Alix  des 
Roys  was  born  and  bred  at  Court,  where  her  mother 
was  governess  to  the  princes  of  Orleans.  She  was 
a  creature  of  great  natural  beauty  and  charm — and 
her  dark  blue  eyes,  dazzling  skin,  clustering  abun- 
dant curls,  high  aquiline  features  and  tall  slender 
frame  she  bequeathed  to  her  only  son  Alphonse, 
along  with  a  passionate,  vibrating  sensibility,  an 


LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE        283 

almost  ecstatic  sense  of  nature,  a  taste  for  grandeur 
and  beauty.  Until  her  wedding  day,  Mademoiselle 
des  Roys  had  spent  her  summers  at  the  Palais  de 
Saint-Cloud,  her  winters  in  the  Palais  Royal,  and 
could  not  imagine  (she  wrote  later)  "how  any  one 
could  live  anywhere  save  at  Court."  Yet  on  her 
marriage  with  a  young  gentleman  of  Burgundy  she 
accepted,  without  a  murmur  or  scarcely  a  regret,  the 
simplest  provincial  life.  The  Major,  afterwards 
Colonel  de  Lamartine,  appears  to  have  been  an 
excellent  officer,  much  less  remarkable  than  his  wife. 
Under  the  Terror,  he,  she,  and  their  little  son 
(Alphonse  de  Lamartine  was  born  at  Macon  in 
October  1791)  were  thrown  into  prison — he  at 
Macon,  they  at  Autun.  But  the  fall  of  Robespierre 
released  and  united  the  persecuted  family.  They 
returned  to  their  small  estate  of  Milly,  in  the  hills 
near  Macon,  and  lived  there  in  great  retirement, 
cultivating  their  vineyards  and  living  by  their  pro- 
duce. "  Nous  nous  sommes  promenes  ce  soir  dans 
nos  vignes  en  fleur,"  writes  Madame  de  Lamartine 
in  a  letter,  "tout  1'air  etait  parfume  par  leur  bonne 
odeur.  Nos  vignes  sont  tout  notre  revenu  pour 
nous,  nos  enfants,  nos  domestiques  et  nos  pauvres." 
The  vineyards  and  sunny  slopes  of  Milly  were  the 
earliest  tutors  of  Lamartine. 

But  his  childhood  was  not  bereft  of  literary 
influence — an  influence  which  penetrated  a  receptive 
nature.  The  Colonel  was  one  of  those  sociable  men 
of  culture,  always  common  in  France,  who  love 


284  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

nothing  so  well  as  to  read  a  brilliant  book  aloud  to 
an  assembled  family — in  this  case,  wife,  son  and, 
successively,  five  little  daughters.  Lamartine's 
earliest  memories  recalled  a  beautiful  mother, 
serious,  tender  and  gay,  half-reclining  on  a  long 
red  sofa  of  worn  Utrecht  velvet,  one  little  girl  on 
her  lap,  another  rocked  in  the  cradle  kept  inces- 
santly in  motion  by  a  gentle  impulse  of  the  mother's 
foot.  Meanwhile  the  Colonel  read  aloud  from  a 
handsome  gilt-edged  volume  bound  in  calf.  His 
voice  was  sweet  and  powerful.  "  II  1'avait  beaucoup 
exercee  dans  sa  jeunesse  en  jouant  la  tragedie  et  la 
comedie  dans  les  loisirs  de  ses  garnisons."  The 
verse  he  read  was  eloquent  and  clear.  It  was  the 
tragedy  of  "  Merope,"  by  Voltaire.  The  child 
listened,  enchanted— 

"  Et  quand  neuf  heures  sonnaient  a  la  grosse 
horloge  de  noyer  de  la  cuisine,  et  que  j'avais  fait 
ma  priere  et  embrasse  mon  pere  et  ma  mere,  je 
repassais  en  m'endormant  ces  vers  comme  un 
homme  qui  vient  d'etre  ballotte  par  les  vagues  sent 
encore,  apres  etre  descendu  a  terre,  le  roulis  de  la 
mer,  et  croit  que  son  lit  nage  sur  les  flots." — (Preface 
des  Meditations^) 

But  the  mother  sometimes  took  her  turn  at  the 
reading,  and  she  would  choose  a  comedy  by  Moliere 
or  a  fable  by  La  Fontaine.  Alphonse,  with  his 
mother's  character,  inherited  his  father's  taste. 
Moliere  and  La  Fontaine  slipped  off  him  like  water 
off  the  feathers  of  a  duck — indeed  he  disliked  La 


LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE        285 

Fontaine.  He  was,  we  fear,  something  of  a  little 
prig  (he  writes  "j'etais  ne  serieux  et  tendre,"  and 
this  is  how  the  prig  appears  to  himself),  but  there  is 
much  to  be  hoped  from  the  race  of  little  prigs,  who 
not  unfrequently  turn  out  the  most  remarkable  of 
men  and  women. 

Twelve  lines  of  Athalie  or  Merope  were 
more  to  the  music-loving  ear  of  this  child  than  all 
the  ravens  and  all  the  Renards  that  haunt  the  dewy 
thyme  of  the  "  Bonhomme's  "  enchanted  fields  and 
forests.  Voltaire  and  Racine  were  to  be  his  masters ; 
he  caught  the  secret  of  their  fluid  verse ;  alone  of  his 
age,  he  knew  how  to  reproduce  its  liquid,  pure  and 
pearly  music — a  lost  art,  which  he  was,  however,  to 
bequeath  to  a  tardy  disciple  of  his  own :  Mistral, 
that  neo-classic,  the  Virgil  of  Provence. 

After  Voltaire  and  Racine  came  other  teachers — 
Ossian,  Tasso,  Fenelon,  Jean-Jacques, — mild  or 
noble  ancestors  of  a  mind  essentially  chivalrous  and 
sweet,  though  lax  and  facile.  Each  of  us,  passing 
through  a  world  in  which  manifold  influences  rain 
around  him — whirling  and  multitudinous  as  the 
snowflakes  of  a  storm,  or  the  seeds  of  pollen  of  a 
summer  hayfield — each  of  us  bears  in  heart  and 
brain  one  secret  spot  which  Nature  has  anointed 
with  a  mysterious  gum,  so  that  whatever  touches  it 
adheres,  although  all  outer  influences  drop  like  dust 
or  drip  like  rain  from  every  other  save  this  one  most 
vulnerable  point.  Sometimes  a  whole  generation 
exudes  at  one  centre  this  natural  adhesive  sap.  The 


286  THE  FRENCH   IDEAL 

men  born  in  1790  and  the  dozen  following  years 
retained  the  romantic,  the  passionate,  the  mysterious, 
the  picturesque,  even  as  our  own  age  is  chiefly  sen- 
sible, out  of  all  the  myriad  influences  of  the  universe, 
to  the  ascendant  of  the  physical  sciences.  Lamar- 
tine  was  a  child  of  his  times,  but  he  wore  his  romance 
with  a  difference,  never  forgetting  a  sort  of  careless 
classic  grace.  He  was  more  alive  to  ideas  than  his 
fellows,  elegiac  rather  than  passionate,  suave  where 
they  were  sonorous,  and,  instead  of  their  sense  of 
mystery  and  magic,  he  had  an  Arab's  feeling  for  the 
omnipresence  of  the  Eternal. 


II 

When  the  boy  was  old  enough  to  leave  his  mother, 
she  entrusted  him  to  the  Jesuits  of  Dijon.  We  know 
the  strong  and  the  weak  points  of  a  Jesuit  education. 
There  are  two  possible  systems  of  training — to 
inoculate  in  a  child's  nature  the  qualities  he  lacks, 
or  chiefly  to  develop  the  qualities  he  has.  Could  an 
Arnold  of  Rugby  have  informed  Lamartine  with  the 
spirit  of  veracity?  Could  a  Pascal  have  made  him 
exact,  coherent,  thorough,  logical?  We  doubt  it. 
The  Jesuits  at  least  fostered  his  native  excellences, 
kept  him  chivalrous  and  lofty-minded,  and,  while 
full  of  mundane  elegances,  yet  unspotted  from  the 
world.  He  never  lost  the  trace  of  his  passage 
through  their  hands.  His  art  was  often  merely 
decorative  art — "  cette  musique  mi-partie  d'eglise  et 


LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE        287 

d'opera,"  as  Sainte-Beuve  put  it.  His  ideas  were 
expressed  with  a  sort  of  amateurish  grace — the  art, 
in  fact,  of  an  "ineffectual  angel."  Something 
declamatory,  something  diffuse,  florid  and  inflated, 
but  also  certain  notes  celestial  and  exquisitely  pure, 
reveal  the  poet  who  has  never  passed  through  the 
bracing  discipline  of  the  public  school,  whose 
character  has  been  formed  by  indulgent  guides, 

"Aimables  sectateurs  d'une  aimable  sagesse." 

The  Jesuits,  at  least,  were  innocent  of  any  conscious 
attempt  to  form  their  pupil's  muse.  The  Fathers 
never  had  good  taste  in  poetry.  Their  favourites 
in  French  verse  were  the  Pere  Ducerceau  and 
Madame  Deshoulieres — "Aussi  je  n'eus  pas  une 
aspiration  de  poesie  pendant  toutes  mes  etudes 
classiques."  Nor  when  he  first  left  college, — just 
the  usual  eleve  des  Peres,  well  dressed,  honourable 
and  brave,  with  no  particular  aptitude  for  anything 
save  amusing  himself — did  Lamartine  show  the  soul 
of  a  great  poet.  He  would  have  made  a  good  officer 
or  a  good  attache,  for  he  knew  how  to  represent  and 
how  to  obey,  but  his  father,  who  had  sworn  fidelity 
to  the  Bourbons,  would  have  thought  himself  dis- 
honoured if  Alphonse  had  taken  service  under 
Bonaparte.  The  young  man,  chafing  at  his  enforced 
idleness,  travelled  a  little  in  Switzerland,  in  Italy, 
experienced  an  "affair  of  the  heart"  with  a  little 
cigar-girl  at  Baia,  Graziella,  whom  his  imagination 
was  to  transform  into  a  very  Miranda;  and  some- 


288  THE  FRENCH   IDEAL 

times  by  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  or  on 
some  steep  Swiss  promontory,  a  formless  impulse 
of  poetry,  a  vague  indeterminate  ode,  would  heave 
the  breast  of  Lamartine  and  find  no  issue.  And, 
other  times  at  Milly,  during  the  long  idle  winters 
when  he  sought  the  refuge  of  his  father's  roof,  he 
would  whittle  and  polish  some  tiny  anacreontic  "in 
the  style  of  Tibullus,  Bertin,  or  Parny  "•  —for  Parny 
was  the  favourite  poet  of  those  Imperial  days. 
Napoleon  was  not  jealous  of  Parny's  muse,  all 
sparklets  and  spangles,  no  more  dangerous  to 
Government  than  an  acrobat  at  a  fair.  The  despot, 
alert  at  every  issue,  who  banished  Madame  de  Stael 
and  sent  Chateaubriand  in  disgrace  to  Dieppe 
(although  himself  at  heart  a  passionate  Romantic, 
an  admirer  of  Werther,  of  Ossian,  and  even  of 
Rene),  preferred  a  facile  prettiness  in  the  minstrels 
of  his  train.  Like  Plato,  he  banished  the  poets;  but 
he  protected  the  puerile  Parnassus  of  a  Parny,  a 
Michaud,  an  Esmenard,  a  Luce  de  Lancival,  harm- 
less models  for  such  lads  of  twenty  as  love  to  waste 
a  score  of  goose-quills  on  an  ode.  One  of  these  was 
Alphonse  de  Lamartine. 

Ill 

Lamartine  at  Milly  was  copying  out  his  pretty 
sensual  little  odes  in  a  pretty  little  parchment  album 
bound  in  green  morocco  when,  in  the  spring  of  1814, 
Napoleon  fell.  The  face  of  the  world  changed. 


LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE        289 

The  return  of  the  Bourbons,  with  a  slacker  form  of 
government,  gave  an  impulse  and  a  movement  to 
intellectual  life.  "  We  breathed  a  larger  air  at  last," 
wrote  Madame  de  Stael.  And  Chateaubriand,  after 
declaiming,  "  Je  rougis  en  pensant  qu'il  me  faut 
nasillonner  a  cette  heure  d'une  foule  d'innmes 
creatures,  etres  douteux  et  nocturnes  d'une  scene 
dont  le  large  soleil  avait  disparu,"  continues  that  the 
overthrow  of  one  man's  colossal  dignity  coincided 
with  the  revival  of  the  dignity  of  man.  "If  despotism 
has  given  place  to  liberty,  if  men  walk  upright  now 
instead  of  creeping,  it  is  thanks  to  the  Restoration." 
France  under  Bonaparte  had  been  a  vast  barracks, 
disciplined  by  a  martinet,  pompous  and  martial, 
with  plenty  of  bravery,  loot,  and  glory,  little  taste, 
less  imagination,  and  no  liberty.  What  a  change  ! 
Soldiers  and  parvenus  no  longer  dominated  the 
scene.  Political  power  passed  into  the  hands  of  a 
party  of  ignorant  country  squires  and  deaf,  decrepit 
emigres.  With  the  emigres  the  ideas  of  London, 
America  even,  Hamburg,  and  the  lesser  German 
courts  appeared  in  Paris.  Combining  with  the  re- 
vival of  Catholicism,  they  favoured  the  long-pent-up 
expansion  of  the  Romantic  movement.  With  the 
country  squires  came  their  sons,  tired  of  inaction, 
eager  for  office.  No  one,  in  a  passive,  indolent  way, 
had  been  more  faithful  to  the  absent  King  than 
Colonel  de  Lamartine.  Alphonse  was  named  an 
officer  in  the  Garde  Noble  of  Louis  XVIII. 
stationed  at  Beauvais. 


290  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

The  return  of  Napoleon  from  the  isle  of  Elba 
interrupted  the  young  poet's  career  as  an  officer,  and 
now  the  desire  of  his  heart  was  a  post  in  diplomacy. 
With  this  end  in  view,  young  Lamartine  was  much 
in  Paris.  Ever  thoughtless  in  money  matters,  he 
emptied  his  purse  at  the  gaming-table  while  he  shat- 
tered his  health  in  idle  dissipation.  It  came  to  his 
mother's  ears  that  Alphonse  was  ruined  and  ill.  The 
Colonel  was  absent.  The  devoted  woman  laid 
hands  on  all  the  sums  she  could  collect,  and  set 
out  at  once  for  Paris  with  her  second  daughter, 
Eugenie.  On  her  arrival  she  hesitated  a  moment, 
dared  not  appear,  tired  and  travel-stained,  like  a 
provincial  Nemesis,  at  the  young  man's  lodgings; 
so,  checking  the  impatience  of  her  heart,  she  drove 
to  a  neighbouring  hotel,  alighting  there  with  her 
daughter  as  though  she  were  in  Paris  for  her 
pleasure.  As  she  sat  silent  in  her  room,  combining 
her  plans  of  approach  and  rescue,  Eugenie  stood 
at  the  open  window,  looking  out  at  the  stream  of 
carriages  which  poured  towards  the  Theatre  Fran- 
cais ;  and  suddenly  the  girl  exclaimed :  "  Maman, 
venez  !  Je  crois  bien  que  je  vois  Alphonse  !  " 

"Je  courus  a  la  fenetre"  (wrote  the  devoted 
mother),  "et  je  le  reconnus  effectivement.  II  etait 
dans  un  elegant  cabriolet,  qu'il  conduisait  lui-meme, 
avec  un  autre  jeune  homme  a  cote  de  lui.  II  avait 
1'air  fort  gai  et  fort  anime,  ce  qui  me  rassura  beau- 
coup.  C'etait  bien  lui !  Toutes  mes  inquietudes 
tomberent  a  sa  vue;  je  ne  voulus  plus  troubler  sa 
soiree.  Je  passais  une  assez  bonne  nuit." 


LAMART1NE 


LAMARTINE   AND    ELVIRE        291 

The  next  day  the  charming  lady  received  her 
son's  confidence,  paid  his  debts,  and  persuaded  him 
to  return  with  her  to  Milly.  She  was  proud  of  her 
triumph.  And,  indeed,  this  was  for  some  time  his 
last  dissipation.  A  new  spirit  seemed  poured  into 
Lamartine;  but  that  spirit  was  not  inspired  by  his 
mother's  love  alone.  At  Aix  that  autumn  he  made 
an  acquaintance  which  decided  his  destiny.  One 
day  he  was  to  write :  "  II  y  a  deux  educations  pour 
tout  homme  jeune  et  bien  doue — 1'education  de  sa 
mere,  et  1'education  de  la  premiere  femme  qu'il  aime 
apres  sa  mere.  Heureux  celui  qui  aime  plus  haut 
que  lui,  a  son  premier  soupir  de  tendresse !  " 


IV 

Disappointment  and  idleness  had  produced  in  the 
young  Lamartine  a  sort  of  hypochondria  (a  liver- 
disease  they  called  it),  for  which  the  doctors  recom- 
mended the  baths  of  Aix.  A  slender  purse  and  a 
melancholy  habit  bade  him  give  a  wide  berth  to 
fashionable  quarters,  and  he  boarded  with  a  doctor 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  town.  Part  of  the  same  house 
was  let  to  a  young  lady,  also  sent  to  drink  the 
waters  :  Madame  Charles,  the  wife  of  an  elderly 
member  of  the  Institute — an  old  man,  indeed,  whose 
age  and  pursuits  retained  him  in  Paris  in  the  apart- 
ment which  he  occupied  at  the  Institute  of  France. 
Madame  Charles  was  something  of  a  personage 


U  2 


292  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

at  Aix,  for  her  husband  was  one  of  the  most  popular 
of  French  savants,  and  his  name  a  household  word. 
Charles  was  not  only  a  great  professor — Franklin 
and  Volta  had  been  his  pupils — remarkable  for  the 
elegance  of  his  experiments  and  the  lucid  ease  of 
his  exposition.  He  was  a  flying-man;  Paris  still 
remembered  his  marvellous  ascent  in  the  air  during 
the  summer  of  1783.  The  brothers  Montgolfier  had 
been  the  first  actually  to  invent  the  balloon;  but  a 
new  invention  is  always  incomplete.  A  few  months 
after  their  exploit,  Charles  perfected  their  discovery 
by  using  hydrogen  gas  as  a  substitute  for  hot  air, 
and  a  triumphant  ascent  had  proved  the  superiority 
of  his  method.  His  celebrity  had  been  instan- 
taneous; it  proved  durable.  Louis  XVI  lodged  him 
in  the  Louvre,  the  Revolution  made  him  a  member 
of  the  Institute,  the  Emperor  befriended  him.  A 
song  made  on  him  some  thirty  years  before  was  not 
yet  forgotten — 

"  L'autre  jour  quittant  mon  manoir 
Je  fis  rencontre,  sur  le  soir 
D'un  globiste  de  haul  parage: 
II  s'en  alia  tout  bonnement 
Chercher  un  lit  au  firmament." 

And  Paris,  supposed  so  fickle,  remained  faithful 
during  more  than  one  generation  to  the  great 
professor  of  physics. 

Charles  was  no  dry-as-dust,  but  a  man  of  the 
world,  accomplished  in  mind  and  manners.  Several 
portraits  preserve  the  contour  of  his  charming,  open, 


LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE        293 

elegant  features,  and  show  us  a  high  cheerful  brow, 
laughing  blue  eyes,  clear  complexion,  and  soft, 
abundant  white  hair,  light  as  swan's-down.  He 
appeared  the  image  of  a  liberal  thinker  according 
to  the  traditions  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XVI.  Some- 
thing of  that  douceur  de  vivre  which  Talleyrand 
said  the  world  had  lost  with  the  Monarchy  still 
lingered  in  the  presence  of  this  amiable  inventor. 

Unfortunately  M.  Charles  had  first  seen  the  light 
so  far  back  as  1746. 

"Der  arme  alte  Konig 
Er  hat  eine  jiinge  Frau." 

Handsome,  illustrious,  and  still  well  on  the  sunny 
side  of  sixty,  in  the  year  1804  he  had  seemed  to  give 
as  much  as  he  got  when  he  married — out  of  compas- 
sion as  much  as  out  of  passion — a  pretty,  penniless, 
motherless  Creole,  with  a  drunken  father,  whom  the 
bridegroom  compared  to  Fielding's  Squire  Western. 
Yet  as  time  slipped  on  it  became  increasingly 
evident  that  M.  Charles  was  seventy  when  Madame 
Charles  was  thirty-two.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
to-day  we  should  call  her  a  beauty;  Julie  des 
Heretics  incarnated  the  ideal  of  her  times.  Our 
taste  is  no  longer  romantic  and  sentimental.  Our 
age  of  nationalism  prefers  the  indigenous,  our  habit 
of  sport  esteems  the  alert  and  wholesome,  just  as 
our  ancestors  admired  the  frail,  the  touching,  and 
the  foreign.  In  1911  we  should  no  doubt  be  moved 
rather  than  enchanted  by  the  slim  languor  of 


294  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Madame  Charles,  the  dead-white  oval  of  her  face 
under  deep  overhanging  masses  of  waved  black  hair, 
the  pinched  wanness  of  the  temples,  the  bruised 
marks  beneath  the  great  blue-green  eyes.  Yet, 
despite  the  thin  drooped  lips,  a  Rossetti  or  a 
Gustave  Moreau  would  have  admired  the  spiritual 
loveliness  of  her  weary  fragility.  Whether  she  had 
beauty  or  not,  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the 
witchery  of  the  dreamy  woman,  half-Breton,  half- 
Creole,  whom  a  cool-headed  savant  had  been  eager 
to  wed,  despite  a  disparity  of  nearly  forty  years; 
whom  a  Bonald  chose  for  his  friend  and  favourite 
disciple;  who  was  to  prove  at  once  the  Laura  and 
the  Beatrice  of  Lamartine.  In  Paris  a  circle  of  aged 
scholars,  philosophers,  and  savants  surrounded  her 
with  delicate  respect  and  attention.  Julie  sat  as  a 
child  in  their  midst,  and  conceived,  no  doubt,  no 
other  way  of  life,  when,  on  the  morrow  of  her  thirty 
years,  heart,  lungs,  and  nerves  seemed  to  collapse 
in  a  desperate  inability  to  live.  Alarmed  by  this 
state  of  languor — of  neurasthenia,  as  we  should  say 
— her  husband  had  sent  her  to  recruit  her  failing 
strength  at  Aix. 

There  she  met  Lamartine,  and  their  meeting  has 
glorified  the  lake  and  the  valley.  "  Chere  vallee 
d'Aix,"  wrote  Julie,  "vous  n'etiez  pas  pour  nous 
avare  des  joies  du  ciel !  "  They  were  so  much  alike 
that  the  people  of  the  little  town,  seeing  them 
together,  took  them  for  near  relations.  And,  later  on 
in  Paris,  the  Memoirs  of  Brifaut  (recording  frequent 


LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE        295 

encounters  with  Lamartine,  on  quay  or  garden  pro- 
menade) describe  as  the  poet's  sister  the  delicate 
young  woman  always  hanging  on  his  arm :  "  Une 
jeune  femme,  au  front  pale,  a  1'air  melancolique,  a  la 
demarche  lente  et  molle."  As  for  Lamartine  him- 
self, Brifaut  sets  him  down  as  an  image  of  the 
Belvedere  Apollo,  slender  and  stately,  the  head 
poised  high  on  a  long  neck,  massy  curls  of  dark 
chestnut  heaped  round  a  noble  forehead,  black-blue 
eyes  deeply  encased  in  large  sockets  beneath  ideal 
brows.  He,  too,  had  something  exotic  in  his  aspect. 
With  the  taste  of  his  times  for  whatever  was  foreign 
or  rare,  Lamartine  liked  to  imagine  himself  of 
Saracen  descent,  the  offspring  of  mediaeval  Moorish 
corsairs  settled  among  the  low  mountains  of  the 
Maconnais.  And  the  proof  of  it  is,  he  exclaimed, 
with  the  delightful  philology  of  a  Romantic  poet— 
"the  proof  is  that  the  true  name  of  my  ancestors 
was  Allamartine ! "  Mashallah !  here  is  proof 
indeed,  enforced,  he  declared,  by  his  own  physical 
structure  :  "  La  taille  haute  et  mince,  1'ceil  noir,  le 
nez  aquilin,  le  cou  de  pied  tres  eleve  sur  la  plante 
cambree,  le  talon  detache,  les  doigts  mordant  le  sol, 
les  doigts  de  la  main  maigres,  allonges  et  cependant 
fortement  noues  aux  jointures — toutes  marques  de 
noblesse  essentiellement  Arabes";  or,  as  we  should 
say,  the  signs  of  a  nervous  and  rheumatic  con- 
stitution. 

When  this  son  of  the  desert  met  Madame  Charles 
at  Aix,  he  had  no  aim  or  object  in  life.     He  had 


296  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

read  immensely,  written  much,  felt  little,  and 
decided  nothing.  Despite  his  episode  at  Baia,  he 
had  not  squandered  the  treasures  of  his  heart. 
Although  no  model  of  a  young  man — vain,  indeed, 
to  an  absurd  excess,  spendthrift,  and  something  of 
a  gambler — there  was  in  Lamartine  a  quality  un- 
smirchably  pure.  Literature  and  politics  attracted 
him,  but  his  taste  in  either  was  unformed  and  vague. 
To  be  a  great  poet  or  to  die  a  romantic  death  alone 
seemed  worthy  of  his  ambition.  He  was  twenty-six 
years  old,  and  the  winds  as  yet  had  wrung  no 
cadence  from  the  ^Eolian  harp  that  was  his  soul. 

What  sort  of  woman  was  she  who  so  profoundly 
was  to  modify  the  mind  of  this  young  man  ?  What 
was  Elvire?  When,  three-and-thirty  years  later, 
Lamartine  took  the  world  into  his  confidence  (or, 
rather,  into  that  half-confidence  which  seldom  quite 
convinces  and  never  quite  confirms)  in  the  pages  of 
Raphael,  he  describes  his  Julie  as  a  woman  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  in  mind  the  contemporary  and 
equal  of  her  husband — a  materialist,  almost  an 
atheist,  at  least  an  esprit  fort. 

"  Elle  fait  croire  au  ciel  et  ne  croit  pas  en  Dieu  !  " 
like  that  heroine  of  Jocelyn  in  whom  M.  Seche  sees 
the  transfigured  image  of  Elvire.  Such  an  attitude 
appears  strange  in  a  lady  of  the  Restoration;— 
stranger  still  in  the  writer  of  the  Letters  of  Elvire, 
full  of  pious  ej aculations  and  resigned  religion.  Still, 
it  is  possible  that  Madame  Charles,  born  and  edu- 
cated in  a  period  of  religious  disorganisation,  living 


LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE        297 

in  a  circle  of  elderly  savants,  may  have  retained  the 
rationalism  of  an  earlier  generation.  She  may  have 
been,  indeed,  Lamartine' s  convert.  And  yet  we 
cannot  help  mistrusting  his  love  of  system,  his 
mania  for  generalising.  We  feel  that,  in  writing  his 
own  love  story,  he  is  capable  of  making  Raphael  and 
Elvire  typical  not  only  of  himself  and  of  her,  but 
also  of  the  two  great  movements  which  divide  the 
French  ideal  during  the  nineteenth  century,  the  one 
making  for  analysis  and  the  individual,  the  other 
for  mystery  and  synthesis.  Did  Julie  in  very  truth 
discourse  in  that  Lucretian  vein  which  Raphael 
records?  Did  she  really  say  to  her  pained  and 
pitying  adorer — 

"  II  vous  est  reste  deux  faiblesses  de  rintelli- 
gence,  le  mystere  et  la  priere  ! 

"  II  n'y  a  point  de  mystere.  II  n'y  a  que  la  raison 
qui  dissipe  tout  mystere.  C'est  I'homme  fourbe  ou 
credule  qui  a  invente  le  mystere;  c'est  Dieu  qui  a 
fait  la  raison.  Et  il  n'y  a  point  de  priere.  Car  dans 
une  loi  inflexible,  il  n'y  a  rien  a  flechir,  et  dans  une 
loi  necessaire  il  n'y  a  rien  a  changer?" 

Was  the  woman  who  inspired  Le  Crucifix  a  free- 
thinker? Who  can  tell?  Lamartine,  so  little  the 
slave  of  reason,  was  not  docile  to  her  logic.  If 
Julie  admitted  a  universal  deity,  inexorable  and 
unconscious,  deaf  to  individual  prayer  and  blind  to 
individual  distress,  Lamartine  still  lit  a  taper  on  the 
altar  of  his  forefathers,  trusted  by  a  lifting  of  the 
heart  to  penetrate  a  sphere  beyond  our  universe, 


298  THE   FRENCH    IDEAL 

accepted  his  trials  as  an  expiation,  or  as  a  God-sent 
means  of  accumulating  merit,  and  kept  in  touch  with 
all  the  moral  talismans  which  have  consoled  the 
generations  of  the  past.  The  vitality  of  his  adora- 
tion was  the  light  of  his  soul,  and  prayer  seemed  a 
power  in  him  to  communicate  with  a  greater  hidden 
Power,  prompt  to  rescue  and  sustain.  These  beliefs 
had  dwelt  in  him  unconsciously  from  the  time  of  his 
childhood.  They  suddenly  arose  winged,  and  in 
full  force,  as  he  strove  to  comfort  the  dear,  dying 
woman  he  adored. 


What  were  the  relations  of  Elvire  and  Lamartine? 
The  critics  disagree.  M.  Anatole  France  believes 
that  the  poet  would  have  preferred  a  pure  platonic 
passion,  but  that  at  last  the  feverish  Elvire  inflamed 
him  with  her  mortal  ardours — 

"  N'accablons  pas  la  memoire  de  cette  ardente 
Julie  des  louanges  d'une  chastete  qui  lui  pesait  si 
lourdement.  II  y  a  toujours  quelque  impertinence 
a  se  porter  garant  de  la  vertu  d'une  femme ;  mais 
quand  cette  femme  a  declare  ses  ardeurs,  n'a-t-on 
pas  bonne  grace  a  se  taire?  Vous  prenez  soin  de 
la  gloire  de  Julie;  mais  Julie  ne  jugeait  pas  de  sa 
gloire  comme  vous.  Ne  lui  faisons  point  des  merites 
vulgaires  ni  des  vertus  proportionnees  a  notre 
mediocrite. 


LAMARTINE    AND   ELVIRE        299 

M.  Rene  Doumic  is  inclined  to  the  opinion  of  this 
great  master;  and  it  is  M.  Rene  Doumic  who  has 
published  the  few  remaining  letters  of  the  lady, 
accompanying  them  with  an  essay  of  classic  charm, 
lucidity,  conciseness,  but  of  a  psychology  somewhat 
summary  and  superficial — the  psychology  of  the 
amiable  and  sceptical  man  of  the  world.  His  is  the 
book  for  the  collector,  the  dilettante,  the  lover  of 
tales.  M.  Leon  Seche's  huge  volume  of  ill-assimi- 
lated erudition  is,  like  all  his  volumes,  open  to  that 
suspicion  of  bookmaking  which  mars  a  book.  But 
his  great  digests  or  compendiums  of  information  are 
invaluable  to  students  of  the  romantic  period.  The 
critic  of  Lamartine  can  no  more  do  without  him  than 
the  critic  of  Sainte-Beuve.  M.  Seche,  then,  from 
the  fulness  of  his  learning,  refutes  indignantly 
M.  Doumic,  and  I  think  he  proves  his  case,  though 
I  am  still  inclined  to  ask  of  either  gentleman  the 
old  question :  "  Comment  f  aites-vous,  monsieur, 
pour  etre  si  sur  de  ces  choses-la?"  M.  Seche  is 
the  true  knight  and  nympholept  of  Elvire  and  her 
virtue.  And  it  is  certain  that,  not  only  in  Raphael, 
in  the  notes  to  the  Meditations,  but  in  a  score  of 
passages  scattered  through  his  correspondence,  his 
cours,  his  Entretiens,  Lamartine  speaks  of  "  un  culte 
ideal  et  passionne,"  a  pure  love  working  an  instan- 
taneous reform  in  a  life  hitherto  frivolous  and 
dissipated.  Elvire  is  a  heaven-sent  guide  and 
guardian  angel :  "  J'aimais  avec  la  pure  ferveur  de 
Tinnocence  passionnee  une  personne  angelique." 


300  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

He  gave  his  only  child  the  name  of  Julia.  His  wife 
was  the  confidant  of  his  devotion  to  her  rival  in 
heaven.  And  the  attitude  of  M.  Charles  to  the 
young  poet — the  attitude  of  all  the  circle  of  Elvire 
— confirms  the  supposition  (to  my  own  mind  abso- 
lutely evident)  of  a  platonic  devotion. 

At  Aix-les-Bains,  in  the  autumn  of  1816,  Madame 
Charles  and  Lamartine  spent  some  three  weeks 
together — as  strangers,  as  friends,  as  lovers.  Then 
she  regained  her  husband's,  he  his  father's,  house, 
not  without  many  plans  for  meeting  in  Paris. 

Elvire  was  a  true  Frenchwoman,  practical  and 
politic.  While  discoursing  on  romantic  love,  pan- 
theism, and  the  ideal,  she  was  none  the  less  occupied 
with  the  temporal  career  of  her  young  friend.  As 
the  constant  hostess  and  confidante  of  the  Baron 
Mounier  and  his  wife,  Lally-Tollendal,  Laine,  the 
Viscount  de  Bonald,  and  other  pillars  of  the 
Royalist  and  Conservative  Right,  she  imagined  her- 
self in  a  position  to  place  Lamartine  in  a  sous- 
-prefecture,  at  least,  if  not  in  some  official  post  in 
Paris.  No  woman  since  Madame  de  la  Fayette  was 
more  constantly  occupied  in  finding  an  office  or  a 
pension  for  this  or  that  deserving  person  in  need  of 
fresh  resources ;  and  here  was  a  case  where  heart  and 
soul  would  second  her  kind  and  managing  disposi- 
tion. She  began  at  once  with  good  advice,  accord- 
ing to  her  lights — checked  any  wanton  wandering 
proclivities  in  favour  of  Liberalism,  freedom  of  the 
Press,  and  such-like  pernicious  heresies;  distilled 


LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE        301 

into  the  young  man  the  true  bon  ton  of  Royalist 
politics,  and  recommended  him  to  write  that  Ode  to 
M.  de  Bonald  which  was  to  serve  him  as  a  letter  of 
introduction.  Since  he  was  so  fond  of  poetry,  here 
was  an  occasion  when  the  Muse  might  prove  of  use  ! 
Bonald  is  still  remembered,  if  only  for  one  lucky 
phrase  :  "  L'homme  est  une  intelligence  servie  par 
des  organes,"  which  is  a  sort  of  hieroglyph  of  French 
idealism. 

At  that  time  M.  de  Bonald  was  the  guide,  philo- 
sopher and  friend  of  a  whole  political  party.  His 
noble  character  and  an  excellent  literary  style  palli- 
ated, so  to  speak,  the  extreme  rigour  of  his  opinions. 
To  form  an  idea  of  his  position  let  us  imagine  a 
Lord  Morley  reversed — a  theocratic  John  Morley — 
the  apostle  of  the  Altar  and  the  Throne ;  we  cannot 
imagine  a  protector  more  useful  to  a  young  man 
equally  apt  at  literature  or  politics.  Lamartine,  it  is 
true,  was  in  a  state  of  innocence  as  to  the  qualities  of 
M.  de  Bonald  :  "  Je  ne  le  connaissais  que  de  nom;  je 
ne  1'avais  jamais  vu;  je  n'avais  jamais  rien  lu  de  lui." 
But  what  young  poet  in  love  would  consider  such 
trifles  an  obstacle,  when  his  chosen  Muse,  for  her 
first  request,  sets  a  subject  and  demands  a  poem? 
The  wild  music  of  the  blood  is  sufficient  inspiration  ! 
And  so  one  evening  at  Aix,  climbing  the  wooded 
heights  Behind  the  house  in  which  his  idol  had 
spoken  of  M.  de  Bonald,  Lamartine  composed  his 
meditation  on  Genius — the  first  of  his  lyrics  inspired 
by  Elvire;  the  first,  that  is  to  say,  inspired  by 


302  THE   FRENCH    IDEAL 

Madame  Charles;  for  under  this  name  of  Elvire 
(henceforth  reserved  for  the  "gloriosa  donna  della 
sua  mente")  he  had  already  celebrated  the  little 
cigar-girl  of  Baia,  with  that  insouciance  of  poets 
who  follow  through  a  succession  of  mortals  one 
constant  ideal,  one  Harmony  and  Muse.  The  "  Ode 
to  Genius  "  is  by  no  means  one  of  the  great  lyrics 
of  Lamartine.  Something  of  Delille  and  Parny 
still  clings  to  its  form  and  its  rhythm.  But  even 
here,  already,  the  large  and  natural  imagination  of 
a  new  poet  is  manifest— 

"Tel  un  torrent,  fils  de  Torage, 
En  roulant  du  sommet  des  monts, 
S'il  rencontre  sur  son  passage 
Un  chene,  1'orgueil  des  vallons, 
II  s'irrite,  il  dcume,  il  gronde, 
II  presse  des  plis  de  son  onde 
L'arbre  vainement  menace ; 
Mais,  debout  parmi  les  ruines 
Le  chene  aux  profondes  racines 
Demeure ;  et  le  fleuve  a  passe"." 

That  is  not  the  Lamartine  we  know.  His  genius 
will  become  more  lofty,  more  luminous,  more 
ethereal  and  only  too  abundant;  the  simplicity  and 
the  love  of  Nature,  the  sweet  elegiac  common-sense, 
are  already  there.  Who  runs,  may  read.  Lamartine, 
so  different  from  -the  poetasters  who  occupied  the 
Paris  of  his  youth,  proceeds  as  naturally  as  a  flower 
from  a  bough  from  the  great  prose  idyllists  of  the 
age  immediately  before  him  :  from  a  Chateaubriand, 
from  a  Madame  de  Stael,  but  especially,  most 
especially,  from  his  true  spiritual  ancestor,  Ber- 


LAMARTINE  AND   ELV1RE        303 

nardin    de    Saint- Pierre,   whose   Paul   et   Virginie 
was  one  day  to  inspire  a  "Jocelyn." 


VI 

The  Ode  was  sent  to  M.  de  Bonald,  who  accepted 
it  with  interest  and  admiration,  and  while  Julie  in 
Paris  made  a  hundred  plans  for  introducing  the 
author  to  people  of  importance,  he,  at  Milly,  was 
occupied  with  her  religious  state  of  mind. 

"Je  la  suppliais  de  chercher  dans  une  religion 
tendre  et  nourrissante,  dans  1'ombre  des  eglises, 
dans  la  foi  mysterieuse  de  ce  Christ,  le  Dieu  des 
larmes,  dans  1'agenouillement  et  dans  1'invocation, 
les  douceurs  que  j'y  avais  goutees  moi-meme  dans 
mon  enfance.  Elle  m'avait  rendu  le  sentiment  de 
la  piete.  Je  composais  pour  elle  ces  prieres 
enflammees  et  calmes  qui  montent  au  ciel  comme 
une  flame  qu'aucun  vent  ne  fait  vaciller.  Je  lui 
disais  de  prononcer  ces  prieres  a  certaines  heures  du 
jour  et  de  la  nuit  ou  je  les  prononcerais  moi- 
meme.  .  .  .  Et  puis  je  mouillais  le  tout  de  larmes; 
elles  laissaient  leurs  traces  sur  les  paroles,  plus 
eloquentes  et  plus  recueillies,  sans  doute,  que  les 
paroles  elles-memes.  J'allais  furtivement  Jeter  a 
la  poste  cette  moelle  de  mes  os.  Je  me  sentais 
soulage,  en  revenant,  comme  si  j'y  avais  jete  une 
partie  du  poids  de  mon  propre  cceur"  (Raphael, 
chap.  liv.). 

"  Elle  m'avait  rendu  le  sentiment  de  la  piete !  " 
Religion  was  ever  with  Lamartine  an  emotion,  a 


304  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

sort  of  blonde  blue  aureole  emanating  from  a  world 
he  looked  at  through  a  mist  of  tears.  There  was 
little  reason  for  the  faith  that  was  in  him,  but  it  was 
not  therefore  less  sincere  :  "  Le  coeur  a  ses  raisons  !  " 
The  fair  Freethinker,  by  enlarging  his  heart,  awoke 
in  him  the  impulse  of  faith.  For  nearly  three 
months  the  lack  of  pence,  which  dogged  and  tor- 
mented the  early  youth  and  later  age  of  the  poet, 
kept  him  from  his  liege-lady.  The  Lamartines  were 
poor,  and  if  life  was  easy  and  large  at  Milly,  where 
the  wine  and  the  bread  and  the  meat  were  grown 
on  the  ancestral  acres,  ready  money  was  a  scarcer 
harvest  which  the  dear  improvident  heir  had  already 
too  frequently  reaped.  Fortunately  a  country  neigh- 
bour, the  especial  friend  and  confidant  of  Alphonse 
— the  young  Viscount  Aymon  de  Virieu — was  estab- 
lished in  Paris  for  the  winter  in  a  tiny  entresol- 
apartment  of  the  mansion  of  the  Due  de  Richelieu, 
in  the  Rue  Neuve-Saint-Augustin.  On  M.  de 
Virieu's  inviting  his  friend  to  share  his  narrow 
quarters,  Madame  de  Lamartine  opened  her  casket, 
drew  out  the  last  of  her  diamonds,  and  gave  it  to 
her  son  to  defray  the  lesser  expenses  of  a  sojourn 
which  might  prove  important  to  his  future.  We  all 
have  in  our  memories  an  enchanted  spot,  a  golden 
Isle  of  Once.  For  Lamartine  henceforth  a  sacred 
air  hung  about  the  low-ceiled  Parisian  waiting- 
room  with  the  dark  alcove  where  he  slept  (so  little 
and  so  late),  and  the  screened  writing-table  by  the 
small  round  window  on  the  court,  where  he  read 


LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE        305 

and  wrote  and  dreamed  hour  after  hour,  the  whole 
day  long,  while  Aymon  de  Virieu's  modish  friends 
streamed  to  and  fro  behind  his  hidden  seat,  till 
nightfall  came  and  the  hour  when  Madame  Charles 
received.  .  .  . 

M.  and  Mme.  Charles  inhabited  an  apartment 
in  the  Institute  of  France  where  every  evening  a 
small,  eminent,  intimate  circle  informally  collected. 
On  the  first  evening  of  his  arrival  in  Paris  Lamartine 
sped  thither,  heralded  by  Aymon  de  Virieu.  The 
door  opened.  Julie  was  standing  by  the  mantel- 
piece, in  the  full  light,  her  elbow  indolently  lean- 
ing on  the  slab  of  white  marble,  her  slim  figure, 
white  shoulders,  and  delicate  profile  doubled  by  the 
reflection  in  the  mirror.  She  was  leaning  forward, 
her  head  a  little  on  one  side,  with  parted  lips, 
anxiously  listening.  She  wore  a  gown  of  dull  black 
silk,  as  black  as  her  hair,  hung  over  with  black  lace, 
round  the  line  of  the  bust,  the  waist,  the  hem.  A 
lamp  upon  the  mantel-piece;  the  leaping  blaze  of 
the  wood  fire ;  the  life,  love,  impatience  of  her 
glance, — all  conspired  to  light  up  her  pale  bright 
face  with  a  splendid  animation. 

That  hectic  spot  on  the  cheeks,  those  gleaming 
eyes,  that  feverish  sweetness  reassured  Lamartine, 
too  much  self-engrossed  to  be  really  anxious  even 
about  the  woman  he  adored.  Nor  did  he  think  it 
strange  that  M.  Charles,  M.  de  Bonald,  all  the  staid 
old  friends  and  counsellors  welcomed  so  kindly  the 
handsome  young  poet  whose  nightly  visit  was  at 


306  THE   FRENCH    IDEAL 

least  a  "  distraction  "  for  their  poor  Julie.  He  did 
not  guess,  what  they  knew,  that  her  life  hung  by  a 
thread.  One  of  that  wise  and  aged  company  is 
Suard,  the  journalist  and  musical  critic — Suard,  the 
"  Gliickiste."  He  too  has  a  young  wife,  a  beauty. 
One  day  she  tells  her  elderly  husband  that  she  has 
ceased  to  care  for  him.  "  Cela  reviendra !  "  he 
replies.  "  But  I  love  another !  "  she  murmurs,  and 
he  soothes  her  with  a  "  £a  passera !  "  in  a  tone  of 
gentle  encouragement.  Such  were  these  gracious 
ironical  survivors  from  an  Ancien  Regime,  students 
of  Nature,  accustomed  to  her  shoals  and  quick- 
sands— consenting,  at  worst,  to  throw  half  their 
cargo  overboard  in  order  to  keep  the  rest.  Was 
Julie's  fatherly  husband  of  M.  Suard's  opinion? 
Was  he  reassured  by  Julie's  physical  danger?  He 
placed  no  hindrance  on  the  continued  intimacy  of 
the  two  young  people,  accepted  Lamartine  as  his 
wife's  elected  "  brother."  Only,  oddly  enough,  no 
post  could  be  found  insuring  a  permanent  residence 
in  Paris  for  the  handsome  young  poet,  who,  when 
the  spring  was  in  full  riot  of  flower,  was  forced,  his 
funds  and  health  exhausted,  to  return  to  Milly,  still 
destitute  of  place  or  expectations. 

The  lovers  wrote  to  each  other  constantly.  And, 
sure  of  reunion,  Lamartine  returned  to  Burgundy 
tranquilly  enough,  for  a  romantic  poet.  M.  France 
is  right :  although  the  memory  of  Elvire  will  prove 
the  sovereign  sweetness  of  all  her  lover's  days ;  yet, 
in  the  season  of  their  actual  companionship,  the 


LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE        307 

fervent,  the  dying  Elvire  was  more  passionately  in 
love  than  Lamartine.  He  at  least  had  the  supreme 
resource  of  poetry.  While  he  was  waiting  to  meet 
Elvire  again,  Lamartine  composed  "1'Immortalite," 
"  Le  Lac  "•  —poems  from  which  romantic  passion  and 
classic  purity  radiate  immortally  commingled.  In 
reading  them  we  are  lifted,  as  by  a  stroke  of  the 
wing,  in  a  rapt  upward  flight,  as  sublime  and  yet  as 
natural  as  the  skyward  impulse  of  that  Angel  of 
Rembrandt's,  in  the  Louvre,  who  cleaves  the  upper 
air  so  swiftly,  and  yet  looks  back  so  tenderly  to  the 
earth. 


VII 

When  we  open  the  slender  volume  which  contains 
the  four  sole  love  letters  remaining  of  all  that  inces- 
sant correspondence  we  see  but  dimly  at  first  what 
manner  of  woman  was  Elvire.  The  physical  note 
strikes  us  first.  In  their  fervour  and  their  fever, 
these  are  the  letters  of  a  consumptive.  And  then, 
beneath  the  emphatic  sensibility  of  the  age,  we  note 
the  sweet,  material  common-sense  of  the  French- 
woman. Elvire  is  full  of  counsel.  She  would  fain 
have  mothered  her  Alphonse  as  Henriette  de  Mort- 
sauf  mothered  Balzac's  sorry  hero. 

And  there  is  little  more !  When  we  open  some 
long-locked  casket  of  feminine  love  letters  we  ex- 
perience the  sense  of  a  period  rather  than  the  sense 

X2 


308  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

of  a  person,  just  as  in  some  century-old  hanging 
press  we  say :  "  So  this  is  what  they  wore !  "  and 
not :  "  Such  was  the  taste  of  one  vanished  lady !  " 
Only  a  great  personality — a  Julie  de  1'Espinasse  or 
an  Elizabeth  Browning — triumphs  over  the  vague 
generalities  of  the  little  language  and  affects  us  im- 
mediately as  Herself.  We  see  in  Madame  Charles 
a  product  of  Rousseau,  with  the  gift  of  tears,  the 
declamatory  tenderness,  the  taste  for  sentimental 
complications,  peculiar  to  his  heroines  and  god- 
daughters. Alphonse  is  her  child ;  she  is  his  mere; 
he  has  for  her  "  une  passion  filiale." 

"  N'avez-vous  pas  dit,  ne  suis-je  pas  sure  que 
vous  avez  pour  moi  une  passion  filiale?  Cher 
Alphonse,  je  tacherai  qu'elle  me  suffise.  L'ardeur 
de  mon  ame  et  de  mes  sentiments  voudrait  encore 
une  autre  passion  avec  celle-la  ou  que,  du  moins,  il 
me  fut  permis,  a  moi,  de  vous  aimer  d'amour  et  de 
tous  les  amours.  Mais  s'il  faut  vous  le  cacher,  6 
mon  ange,  si  vous  etes  tellement  dans  le  ciel  que 
vous  repoussiez  les  passions  de  la  terre,  jeme  tairai, 
Alphonse !  J'en  demanderai  a  Dieu  la  force  et  il 
m'accordera  de  vous  aimer  en  silence." 

"  Arrivez,  arrivez,  Alphonse ;  venez  consoler  votre 
mere.  Je  ne  puis  plus  supporter  vos  cruels  reproches ; 
et  1'idee  dechirante  que  vous  avez  pu  croire  a  un 
changement  de  mes  sentiments  fait  un  tel  effet  sur 
moi  que  je  ne  suis  plus  maitresse  de  ma  raison. 
Pour  vous  prouver  que  je  vous  aime  par-dessus  tout, 
injuste  enfant,  je  serais  capable  de  tout  quitter  dans 
le  monde,  d'aller  me  Jeter  a  vos  pieds  et  de  vous 
dire  :  disposez  de  moi,  je  suis  votre  esclave.  Je 


LAMARTINE   AND   ELVIRE        309 

me  perds,  mais  je  suis  heureuse.  Je  vous  ai  tout 
sacrifie,  reputation,  honneur,  etat,  que  m'importe? 
Je  vous  prouve  que  je  vous  adore.  Vous  n'en 
pouvez  plus  douter.  C'est  un  assez  beau  sort  que 
de  mourir  pour  vous  a  tout  ce  que  je  cherissais  avant 
vous !  Et  que  m'importe,  en  effet,  et  que  puis-je 
placer  a  cote  d'Alphonse  qui  put  balancer  un  seul 
instant  les  sacrifices  que  je  suis  prete  a  lui  faire? 
S'il  se  rit  des  jugements  des  hommes,  je  cesse  de 
les  respecter.  Je  trouverai  bien  toujours  un  abri 
pour  ma  tete,  et  quand  il  ne  m'aimera  plus,  un  gazon 
pour  la  couvrir.  Je  n'ai  pas  besoin  d'autres  biens." 

It  seems  that  Lamartine,  who  received  these 
letters  (as  ardent  surely  as  those  of  Heloise  or  the 
Portuguese  Nun),  one  day  accused  Elvire  of  cold- 
ness or  indifference.  And  she  replies — 

"J'aurais  cru  mourir  plutot  que  de  vous  ecrire 
froidement.  Une  seule  chose  pourrait  m'expliquer 
a  moi-meme  ce  dont  vous  vous  plaignez.  C'est  si 
je  vous  ai  ecrit  devant  les  autres  et  tellement  vite 
a  cause  de  1'heure,  qu'il  fallait  etouffer  toutes  mes 
pensees.  Je  sens  fort  bien  que  quand  un  autre  me 
regarde  je  ne  puis  vous  rien  dire.  II  me  semble 
qu'on  m'ecoute.  .  .  ." 

But  in  all  this  ardent  medley  of  jealousy,  remorse, 
provocation,  passionate  chafings,  we  see  a  passion 
and  a  period  rather  than  Madame  Charles  herself. 
We  die  with  our  generation;  the  mind  of  Julie,  the 
sentiments  and  scruples  of  her  erring  heart,  are  only 
a  handful  of  dust,  like  her  fragile  body. 

Once,    jealous    of    that    earlier    Elvire    whom 


310  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

Alphonse  had  known  by  the  shores  of  Baia,  the 
poor  lady  questioned  Aymon  de  Virieu  as  to  the 
qualities  of  the  fisher's  daughter.  The  guileless 
youth  replied  :  "  Oui,  c'etait  une  excellente  petite 
personne,  pleine  de  coeur  et  qui  a  bien  regrette 
Alphonse."  And  thereupon  Madame  Charles 
throws  up  her  wasted  hands  to  heaven  :  "  Mais  elle 
est  morte  de  douleur,  la  malheureuse  !  Elle  1'aimait 
avec  idolatrie !  Elle  n'a  pas  pu  survivre  a  son 
depart ! "  Is  that  the  right  way  to  speak  of  a 
"  f emme  angelique  "  ?  Or  was  Lamartine's  passion 
a  delusion? 

"  Et  moi  aussi,  cher  Alphonse,  vous  me  louez, 
vous  m'exaltez  et  vous  m'aimez,  parce  que  vous  me 
croyez  un  etre  superieur.  Mais  que  1'illusion  cesse, 
que  quelqu'un  dechire  le  voile,  et  que  me  restera-t-il, 
si  vous  pouvez  vous  tromper  ainsi  dans  vos  juge- 
ments?  Est-ce  done  1'imagination  qui  s'enflamme 
chez  vous?  .  .  .  Oh,  mon  ange,  je  ne  puis  le  croire 
et  cependant  j  e  tremble  !  Si  un  j  our,  cher  Alphonse, 
on  allait  vous  dire  de  moi :  c'etait  une  bonne  femme, 
pleine  de  cceur,  qui  vous  aimait." 

Peace,  poor  lady!  "  Le  Lac,"  "  Le  Vallon," 
"  Le  Crucifix,"  have  made  immortal  the  memory  of 
Elvire. 


LAMARTINE   AND   ELY  IRE        311 


VIII 

Lamartine  kept  his  tryst  at  Aix  alone.  Julie  was 
dying. 

"  O  lac !  L'annde  a  peine  a  fini  sa  carriere, 
Et  pres  des  flots  chdris  qu'elle  devait  revoir, 
Regarde !  je  viens  seul  m'asseoir  sur  cette  pierre 
Oil  tu  la  vis  s'asseoir." 

They  never  met  again.  Madame  Charles  died  in 
Paris  under  her  husband's  roof,  the  old  husband 
who  for  seven  years  survived  her.  Aymon  de  Virieu 
brought  the  despairing  lover  the  crucifix  which  had 
received  her  dying  breath. 

Lamartine  was  at  Milly.  For  three  days  and 
nights  he  roamed  the  woods  and  fields  like  a  man 
distraught.  When  he  returned  it  was  to  magnify 
the  memory  of  his  loss  by  those  meditations  which 
embalm  the  name  of  Elvire,  her  pious  end,  and 
celebrate  her  soul  in  heaven.  They  are  :  "  Isole- 
ment,"  "  Le  Desespoir,"  "  L'Apparition,"  "  Sou- 
venir," "Le  Crucifix,"  "  Les  Etoiles."  .  .  .  "Julie 
etait  morte  [writes  M.  Doumic]  Elvire  allait  com- 
mencer  a  vivre.  Comme  on  voit  dans  des  legendes 
naives  et  pleines  de  sens  toute  une  floraison  jaillir 
d'une  tombe  a  peine  fermee,  ainsi  sur  la  tombe  de 
la  jeune  femme  1'amour  refleurissait  en  poesie." 

In  one  of  his  Meditations,  Lamartine  feigns  that 
God  created  for  the  use  of  men  two  different  kinds 
of  speech  :  the  one  articulate,  sensible  and  variable ; 


312  THE   FRENCH   IDEAL 

the  other  mute,  instinctive,  eternal,  universal. 
Those  rare  souls  who  command  the  "  langage  senti " 
express  themselves  in  sighs,  dumb  ardours,  sudden 
illuminations.  It  was  in  this  burning  and  silent 
tongue,  felt  not  heard,  that  Lamartine  drew  from 
his  heart  that  secret  elegy  of  Elvire  whose  broken 
echo  haunts  the  noblest  of  his  poems  like  a  passion. 
We  imagine  that  more  than  one  century  will  repeat 
them  with  a  tender  predilection,  and  pause,  in  the 
middle  of  a  stanza,  to  call  up  the  burning,  the 
fragile,  phantom  of  Elvire. 


THE   END 


Richard  Clay  &  Sons,  Limited,  London  and  Bungay. 


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